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

Woe betide anyone who didn't meet Amorim's standards.

From BBC ● Aug. 4, 2025

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

Etymologically, “invective” is a cavalry charge, and when Cicero hit a gallop, woe betide whoever was in the way.

From "Words Like Loaded Pistols" by Sam Leith

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

When this odd gesture betides them, they are scratching themselves with one foot, and thus lose the center of gravity.

From School Reading by Grades Sixth Year by James Baldwin

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

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

He sprinkled water on his face and when he revived, he said to him, 'What has betided thee?

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

Betide, betided or betid, betiding, betided or betid.

From The Grammar of English Grammars by Goold Brown

"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

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

There was an Ark with scrolls of the Law in the room, betiding a piety and a purse beyond the normal.

From Ghetto Comedies by Israel Zangwill

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

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

Then spake the Carline: "I must now look along the ways of sleep and see what is betiding."

From The Sundering Flood by May Morris

I will come anon and learn what is betiding.

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