behind eight ball vs dire

behind eight ball

dire

adj
  • Warning of bad consequences: ill-boding; portentous. 

  • Expressing bad consequences: dreadful; dismal. 

  • Bad in quality, awful, terrible. 

  • Requiring action to prevent bad consequences: urgent, pressing. 

How often have the words behind eight ball and dire occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )