betide

And woe betide you if you haven’t prepared as well as she has.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 20, 2026

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

But woe betide anyone who tried to give her out-of-season berries.

From Seattle Times ● Aug. 21, 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

Trim, I fear nothing, he would say, but the doing a wrong thing.——Well, he would add, whatever betides, I will take care of Le Fever’s boy.—And with that, like a quieting draught, his honour would fall asleep.

From The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

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

Within that house secure he hides, When danger imminent betides Of storm, or other harm besides Of weather.

From The Children's Garland from the Best Poets by Coventry Kersey Dighton Patmore

Now paupers got sick and got well as Nature pleased: but woe betided the rich in an age when, for one Mr. Malady killed, three fell by Dr. Remedy.

From The Cloister and the Hearth A Tale of the Middle Ages by Charles Reade

But she always took the side of right and virtue against wrong and vice, and woe betided the luckless wight who fell under the ban of her just displeasure.

From Ben Burton Born and Bred at Sea by Archibald Webb

Anguish flying, gladly dying; no more pining, night-enshrining, ne'er divided whate'er betided, side by side still abide in realms of space unmeasured, vision blest and treasured!

From Tristan and Isolda Opera in Three Acts by Richard Wagner

These were anchored a hundred yards from shore, and Brian saw the danger that betided as the stream of fugitives swept down toward the boats.

From Nuala O'Malley by H. Bedford-Jones

"And what calamity, O my brother hath betided thee?"

From The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 16 by Sir Richard Francis Burton

I will come anon and learn what is betiding.

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

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

With no thought of ill betiding, "Thus," we said, "life's years shall be For us twain a river gliding To a calm, eternal sea."

From The Argosy Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 by Charles W. Wood

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

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