betide

Woe betide the philistine who requests a salt shaker or asks that a meticulously prepared dish be spice-bombed.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 23, 2026

And woe betide any member of the cabinet who upset his mistress.

From BBC ● Feb. 24, 2023

Woe betide the grounds passholder who shows up at the “wrong” entrance; you may be made to walk several blocks, though several on Monday attempted to argue with U.N. police.

From Seattle Times ● Sep. 19, 2022

Woe betide the civic leader in a company town who threatens to buck the company’s interests.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 4, 2022

Woe betide the plant whose genetic program is mismatched to the latitude of the field in which it is planted!

From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond

But I have to wonder if, whatever betides, I can stay upbeat in spirit.

From The New Yorker ● Dec. 16, 2019

It fails to mention Ogden Nash's "One rule which woe betides the banker who fails to heed it,/ Which is you must never lend any money to anybody unless they don't need it."

From Time Magazine Archive

Vain is his force:—our holy sanctuary, Whate'er betides, shall give your virtue shelter; And peace, and piety, alone, approach you.

From The Count of Narbonne A Tragedy, in Five Acts by Robert Jephson

Soon her song is waken’d; “Woe! woe! woe betides us, Friend from friend divided, Bird from forest banish’d!”

From Servian Popular Poetry by John Bowring

Old meerschaum pipe, I'll fondly wipe Thy scarred and blackened form, For thou to me wilt ever be— Whate'er betides the storm— A casket filled with memories Of life's Auroral morn.

From Pipe and Pouch The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry by Various

Hard by the bridge, there was a stone cross upon a knoll, and here the group had collected—half-a-dozen women and one tall fellow in a russet smock—discussing what the bell betided.

From The Black Arrow A Tale of the Two Roses by Robert Louis Stevenson

Yet I nor sought nor risked a life; I shudder at an open knife; The perilous seas I still avoided And stuck to land whate’er betided.

From The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) Juvenilia and Other Papers by Robert Louis Stevenson

Not only was he unapprized of the disaster that had happened, but some joyous occurrence had betided.

From Wieland: or, the Transformation, an American Tale by Charles Brockden Brown

And then there betided between us what I'll not discover, i'      faith: So question no more of the matter and deem not of ill      or unright.

From The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Volume IV by John Payne

But first Ile tel you what betided me after I was brought to Doctour Zacharies.

From The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life Of Jack Wilton With An Essay On The Life And Writings Of Thomas Nash By Edmund Gosse by Edmund Gosse

Doth she lead her hither To the wind and sun?—Ah, fain would I know What strange betiding hath blanched that brow   And made that young life wither.

From Hippolytus/The Bacchae by Euripides

For prairie and mountain, windswept and high, For betiding beauty of earth and sky— Say a benediction e'er you pass by.

From The Miracle and Other Poems by Virna Sheard

And hence their quiet looks confiding,        Hence grateful instincts seated deep,      By whose strong bond, were ill betiding,        They'd risk their own his life to keep.

From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 06, No. 38, December, 1860 by Various

The death of my son betiding while my soul was under this anxiety, I thought of nothing but resigning my dominions, and retiring for ever from the sight of mankind.

From Shorter Novels, Eighteenth Century The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia; The Castle of Otranto, a Gothic Story; Vathek, an Arabian Tale by William Beckford

I will come anon and learn what is betiding.

From The Sign of the Red Cross by Evelyn Everett-Green