A situation requiring a choice between two or more alternatives, each of which is equally undesirable or presents significant disadvantages.
She faced a hard choice. Her family needed money for medicine, but to get it, she had to steal from her boss, a kind man. Either way, someone she cared about would get hurt. It was a difficult dilemma.
The old farmer faced a stark dilemma. His prize cow, the only one producing milk for the whole village, was sick. He could sell it for medicine, leaving everyone thirsty, or keep it and risk losing the cow and the milk forever.
The old man stared at the broken, ancient clockwork bird. He could fix its whirring gears, but the delicate, glowing crystal powering it would shatter. Or he could preserve the crystal, leaving the bird silent forever. It was a true dilemma, this choice between a broken life and a lost memory.
Barnaby faced a tricky dilemma. Should he eat the last slice of pizza, which was slightly burnt, or share it with his extremely hungry cat, Mr. Fuzzybottom, who was eyeing it like it was the moon? Both options seemed pretty bad.
Barnaby the badger faced a truly sticky dilemma. Should he nibble the sparkly, rock-hard candy his aunt sent, or brave the tickle-monster who guarded the couch? Both options promised itchy noses and grumpy sighs, a terrible choice for a badger who just wanted a nap.
She stared at the two paths. One led to poverty but kept her family safe. The other offered a chance at wealth but risked everything she held dear. It was a crushing dilemma, a choice between terrible outcomes with no good option in sight.
She stared at the two buttons, one promising immediate relief from the blinding light, the other a chance to reroute the unstable plasma flow. Her hand hovered, caught in a painful dilemma: a quick, guaranteed burn, or a risky maneuver that might save the entire asteroid colony.
The alien spore was a ticking time bomb. Releasing it meant certain planetary death. But containing it, even with the ship's shield failing, would cook the crew inside. A terrible dilemma; choose between two deaths, neither of them good.
I faced a real dilemma: eat the suspiciously green casserole or go hungry. Both options promised a swift journey to the porcelain throne, a situation requiring a choice between two equally undesirable outcomes. I chose the casserole. My stomach regrets it.
Bartholomew faced a profound dilemma: wear the spaghetti-stained apron he'd accidentally dyed purple during a questionable tie-dye experiment, or attend the prestigious "Competitive Pigeon Fashion Show" in his underwear. Either choice promised utter humiliation, a true quandary of the soul.
He faced a dilemma: either tell the truth and face severe consequences, or lie and live with the gnawing guilt of deceit. Both paths promised only pain and regret, leaving him trapped in an impossible choice.
The seasoned archivist faced a true dilemma. Releasing the fragmented, ancient texts would expose a devastating secret, yet preserving them meant condemning their knowledge to permanent obscurity, a loss that felt like a slow death to historical truth.
The microbiologist faced a true dilemma. Her research required a costly, rare reagent, but obtaining it meant diverting funds from a vital, ongoing experiment that could prevent a local blight. Either choice jeopardized her funding and the community's crops.
Facing the perilous dilemma of either eating the suspicious, fuzzy sandwich or enduring an entire afternoon of Aunt Mildred's unsolicited dating advice, Bartholomew felt a bead of sweat trickle down his temple. Both options were truly a ghastly prospect.
Bartholomew faced a culinary dilemma: either consume the suspiciously vibrant neon-green Jell-O mold his aunt painstakingly crafted, or endure her mournful sighs for the rest of the evening. The Jell-O quivered ominously, promising an unknown, likely unpleasant, taste sensation.
He faced a profound dilemma. To expose his colleague's malfeasance meant professional ostracism, a bleak outlook. Yet, remaining silent would condone the egregious misconduct, an unbearable moral quandary. Both paths led to significant, unwelcome consequences.
The interstellar diplomat faced an intractable dilemma: accede to the xenomorphic faction's demands for planetary terraforming, jeopardizing Earth's nascent ecosystem, or refuse, risking an intergalactic conflagration that would decimate countless sentient species. Either choice promised devastation.
The expedition leader faced a profound dilemma. Continuing toward the anomalous energy signature risked catastrophic equipment failure in the unforgiving abyssal plain, yet turning back meant abandoning potentially groundbreaking xenobiological discoveries, leaving them forever undocumented.
Barnaby faced a veritable dilemma: either subsist on a perpetual diet of desiccated gruel, the very thought of which was *abject*, or, conversely, endure Aunt Mildred's operatic renditions of sea shanties every waking moment. He pondered this ignominious predicament, a most unwelcome quandary, until a stray raven, with eyes like polished obsidian, absconded with his last biscuit, thus resolving his terrible choice with unsolicited avian intervention.
Bartholomew faced a profound dilemma: either admit his pet gargoyle, Reginald, had devoured the Ambassador's prize-winning schnauzer, or feign ignorance and endure endless, excruciatingly polite interrogations about Reginald's whereabouts, which invariably devolved into protracted discussions on proper gargoyle husbandry and the geopolitical implications of rogue ceratopsians.
Normal — Everyday words worth reinforcing.