dire

Without any access to supplies, conditions underground are said to be dire.

His death is particularly difficult, Gyamfi said, because Brown had shown her he was persistently fighting to improve himself and, in the most dire of circumstances at times, to live.

When they realize that the man who opens the door isn’t what he seems — there is no Mrs. Reed, the front door is locked, the windows too small for egress — they do their best to play along and then, when things become more dire, to escape.

In his earlier writings, Ho cogently explained why the Constitution flatly forbids these dire consequences.

The hosts and guests on the cable news networks — two in particular — looked sickened as 2016 repeated itself and they tried to convince themselves and the viewers that matters could not possibly be so dire and that somehow Harris was going to find a way to win.