Word: direness
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...long flight of stairs and moves, oh so slowly and wearily, along the second story. We see then that the strain of the banquet has been too much for her, that she is beginning to crack, that she is no longer in full command. We sense that something dire will befall her; and indeed this is the last time we shall see her in a conscious state. This exit contrasts wonderfully with her first entrance; and the two form a bracketing frame for her entire life on stage as a complete human being...
...nomination last month said: "I don't think I am cut out for this very high office. I shall have to force myself to cope with it." But, badly split following the resounding feud between Adenauer and Economics Minister Ludwig Erhard, the Christian Democrats were in dire need of an uncontroversial candidate for the high, if largely ceremonial, office of President...
Once a week or so, an elderly Negro woman stalks down the crowded sidewalks of Harvard Square and Massachusetts Avenue, crying out in a dire, haunting voice, "Prepare to meet your God!" Her hat and dress are bedraggled, and she carries a worn paper shopping bag in one hand while the other is raised in ominous prophetic warning. The passers-by either smirk or ignore her or shake their heads: the last thing any Harvard or Radcliffe undergraduate expects to do on the public streets or elsewhere is to meet his God--at least in any literal sense, as they...
From outside comes a peril more dire, if not more wearing, than hunger or boredom or claustrophobia. Nazi boots clump on the cobblestone sidewalks, and the heehaw of the paddy wagon siren sounds in the night; from their window the fugitives watch, horrified, as the greengrocer across the street, and the two Jews he has been harboring, are hauled off. In a scene more tension-packed than anything Alfred Hitchcock ever devised, two Germans search the factory by night after a burglar has broken in. As the refugees huddle breathlessly in the loft, the suspicious Germans stretch out their investigation...
...Susan Johnson had arrayed herself in a midshipman's uniform, invaded the academy, stood formation, attended mess with 3,600 midshipmen, had gaily run down dormitory corridors popping into rooms (so another account ran) and made a clean getaway. First upshot: two midshipmen charged with helping her face dire punishment, and three midshipman officers who knew of the plot were broken to the ranks (the academy first said the demotions were merely for "administrative reasons"). Second upshot: Dr. Marius Johnson grounded his high-sailing daughter Susy...