Coffee has initially been a food – chewed, not sipped. Early African tribes consume coffee by grinding the berries together, adding some animal fat, and rolling the treats into tiny edible energy balls.
DIRE
awful, dire, direful, dread, dreaded, dreadful, fearful, fearsome, frightening, horrendous, horrific, terrible
(adjective) causing fear or dread or terror; “the awful war”; “an awful risk”; “dire news”; “a career or vengeance so direful that London was shocked”; “the dread presence of the headmaster”; “polio is no longer the dreaded disease it once was”; “a dreadful storm”; “a fearful howling”; “horrendous explosions shook the city”; “a terrible curse”
desperate, dire
(adjective) fraught with extreme danger; nearly hopeless; “a desperate illness”; “on all fronts the Allies were in a desperate situation due to lack of materiel”- G.C.Marshall; “a dire emergency”
Source: WordNet® 3.1
Etymology
Adjective
dire (comparative direr or more dire, superlative direst or most dire)
Warning of bad consequences: ill-boding; portentous.
Requiring action to prevent bad consequences: urgent, pressing.
Expressing bad consequences: dreadful; dismal
Synonyms: horrible, terrible, lamentable
(informal) Bad in quality, awful, terrible.
Anagrams
• Dier, IDer, Reid, dier, drie, ired, ride
Source: Wiktionary
Dire, a. [Compar. Direr; superl. Direst.] Etym: [L. dirus; of uncertain origin.]
1. Ill-boding; portentous; as, dire omens.
2. Evil in great degree; dreadful; dismal; horrible; terrible; lamentable. Dire was the tossing, deep the groans. Milton. Gorgons and hydras and chimeras dire. Milton.
Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition
Recent Word Finds
Word of the Day
14 April 2025
FOCUS
(noun) maximum clarity or distinctness of an image rendered by an optical system; “in focus”; “out of focus”
Coffee Trivia
