| 释义 |
direful, a.|ˈdaɪəfʊl|
[f. dire a. (or n.) + -ful.]
Fraught with dire effects; dreadful, terrible.
1583Stubbes Anat. Abus. i. (1879) 70 Except these women weare minded to..folowe their direfull wayes in this cursed kind of..Pride. 1590Spenser F.Q. i. xi. 55 Whenas the direfull feend She saw not stirre..She nigher drew. 1604Shakes. Oth. v. i. 38 'Tis some mischance, the voyce is very direfull. 1634Milton Comus 357 The direful grasp Of savage hunger, or of savage heat. 1715–20Pope Iliad i. 1 Achilles' wrath, to Greece the direful spring Of woes un⁓number'd. 1781Gibbon Decl. & F. II. xlii. 561 Their sincerity was attested by direful imprecations. 1825J. Nicholson Operat. Mechanic 477 The direful effects of using lead in the manufacture of pottery. 1850Merivale Rom. Emp. (1865) II. xi. 8 Prodigies of direful import.
Hence ˈdirefully adv., dreadfully, terribly; ˈdirefulness, dreadfulness, terribleness.
a1656Ussher Ann. (1658) 244 Curtius..describes..the direfullnesse of the tempest. 1756J. Warton Ess. Pope (T.), The direfulness of this pestilence is..emphatically set forth in these few words. 1775Ash, Direfully (..not much used). 1845–6Trench Huls. Lect. Ser. ii. iv. 196 These convictions..men were too direfully earnest in carrying..out. 1848Thackeray Van. Fair lxii, He passed the night direfully sick in his carriage. |