dire vs hopeless

dire

adj
  • Expressing bad consequences: dreadful; dismal. 

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

  • Bad in quality, awful, terrible. 

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

hopeless

adj
  • Without hope; despairing; not expecting anything positive. 

  • Giving no ground of hope; promising nothing desirable; desperate. 

  • Without talent, not skilled. 

  • Incurable. 

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