dire vs terrible

dire

adj
  • Bad in quality, awful, terrible. 

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

  • Expressing bad consequences: dreadful; dismal. 

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

terrible

adj
  • Very bad; lousy. 

  • Intense; extreme in degree or extent. 

  • Dreadful; causing terror, alarm and fear; awesome 

  • Formidable, powerful. 

  • Unpleasant; disagreeable. 

adv
  • In a terrible way; to a terrible extent; terribly; awfully. 

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