Synonyms: dangerous, grave, grievous, life-threatening, serious, severe
Definition: causing fear or anxiety by threatening great harm
Usage: a dangerous operation; a grave situation; a grave illness; grievous bodily harm; a serious wound; a serious turn of events; a severe case of pneumonia; a life-threatening disease
Similar words: critical
Definition: being in or verging on a state of crisis or emergency
Usage: a critical shortage of food; a critical illness; an illness at the critical stage
Synonyms: serious
Definition: requiring effort or concentration; complex and not easy to answer or solve
Usage: raised serious objections to the proposal; the plan has a serious flaw
Similar words: difficult, hard
Definition: not easy; requiring great physical or mental effort to accomplish or comprehend or endure
Usage: a difficult task; nesting places on the cliffs are difficult of access; difficult times; why is it so hard for you to keep a secret?
Synonyms: serious
Definition: of great consequence
Usage: marriage is a serious matter
Similar words: important, of import
Definition: of great significance or value
Usage: important people; the important questions of the day
Definition: appealing to the mind
Usage: good music; a serious book
Similar words: intellectual
Definition: appealing to or using the intellect
Usage: satire is an intellectual weapon; intellectual workers engaged in creative literary or artistic or scientific labor; has tremendous intellectual sympathy for oppressed people; coldly intellectual; sort of the intellectual type; intellectual literature
Synonyms: serious
Definition: concerned with work or important matters rather than play or trivialities
Usage: a serious student of history; a serious attempt to learn to ski; gave me a serious look; a serious young man; are you serious or joking?; Don't be so serious!
Similar words: sincere, solemn, earnest
Definition: characterized by a firm and humorless belief in the validity of your opinions
Usage: both sides were deeply in earnest, even passionate; an entirely sincere and cruel tyrant; a film with a solemn social message
Similar words: sober, solemn, sedate, grave
Definition: dignified and somber in manner or character and committed to keeping promises
Usage: a grave God-fearing man; a quiet sedate nature; as sober as a judge; a solemn promise; the judge was solemn as he pronounced sentence
Similar words: overserious
Definition: excessively serious
Similar words: real
Definition: not to be taken lightly
Usage: statistics demonstrate that poverty and unemployment are very real problems; to the man sleeping regularly in doorways homelessness is real
Similar words: thoughtful, serious-minded
Definition: acting with or showing thought and good sense
Usage: a sensible young man
Similar words: sobering
Definition: tending to make sober or more serious
Usage: the news had a sobering effect
Similar words: solid
Definition: of a substantial character and not frivolous or superficial
Usage: work of solid scholarship; based on solid facts