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

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

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

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 4, 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

Ill betides him that has need o' thee," said the boatman, surlily;—"come, jump in.

From Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 by John Roby

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 I will teach her hopefully To meet what Fate betides, To live and labor earnestly, In narrow path or wide; And, with salt tears on paling cheek, A benediction still to speak.

From Indian Legends and Other Poems by Mary Gardiner Horsford

Whusky an' he were man an' may Whate'er betided.

From New Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson

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

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

Whatever betided, there was but one woman in the world for him.

From Woven with the Ship A Novel of 1865 by Cyrus Townsend Brady

This should have served to prefigure to me that my soul, once free and sovereign of itself, was on that day to lay aside its sovereignty and become a slave, as it betided.

From La Fiammetta by Giovanni Boccaccio

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

From The Grammar of English Grammars by Goold Brown

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

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

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

I will come anon and learn what is betiding.

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