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

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

From Seattle Times ● Aug. 21, 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

He’ll be true to your cheel whatever betides, or I’m a fule.”

From Children of the Mist by Eden Phillpotts

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

Mine are to stand firm, whatever betides, and guard the women!

From The Abbess Of Vlaye by Stanley J. Weyman

Her thoughts were with all that had betided in the past and what might have been.

From The Ordeal A Mountain Romance of Tennessee by Douglas Duer

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 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

Such doom, of old, that youth betided,   Who wooed, he thought, some angel's charms, But found a cloud that from him glided,—   As thou dost from these outstretched arms.

From The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore Collected by Himself with Explanatory Notes by William Michael Rossetti

And when they had rested and were cheered, Ja'afar said, "Do thou acquaint me with all that betided thee from the time we took leave each of other until this day and date."

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

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

From The Grammar of English Grammars by Goold Brown

I will come anon and learn what is betiding.

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

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

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

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