Japan's economic woes, for example, have dire implications here because big Japanese banks are pulling credit lines to small and midsize businesses.

News of the three additional murders had dire implications.

The case she makes has dire implications.

Wal-Mart's success in that area has possibly dire implications for competitors in the food and drug categories.

These are trying times for Smith, and this season could have dire implications for him, too.

He understands war, and will understand the dire implications of this coming new war.

He stopped, seemed to roll the words around in his mouth as if savoring the dire implications.

It hasn't been, although negotiations are apparently well under way and Met officials stressed that no "dire" implications should be read into the delay.

The dire implications were not lost on any of us.

And she reports on the dire political implications for the new democracy as recently awakened expectations run up against hard reality.