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

A certain life was expected for you, and woe betide you if you went outside of that.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 23, 2024

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 you if you were a preacher and you misquoted," Lord Sentamu says.

From BBC ● Sep. 17, 2022

Nay, nay, whatever may now betide in war, my line too is ending, even the House of the Stewards has failed.

From "The Return of the King" by J.R.R. Tolkien

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

Befall and betide are transitive; happen is intransitive; something befalls or betides a person or happens to him.

From English Synonyms and Antonyms With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions by James Champlin Fernald

Whate'er betides us—grief or happiness— The brave and wise will bear with steady mind, The allotment, unforeseen and undefined, Of good or evil, which the Gods bestow, Promiscuously dealt to man below.

From Life and Literature Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, and classified in alphabetical order by John Purver Richardson

“Ill luck never betides us,” replied Herfrida, with an expression of bland assurance on her handsome face.

From Erling the Bold by R. M. (Robert Michael) Ballantyne

For the love of her, afflicted, as I am, I have become; All      that's fallen on me betided from the evil eye, perdie.

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

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

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

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

Thereupon the Judge explained saying, "Pardon, O King of the Age, I merit even more than what hath betided me."

From The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 14 by Sir Richard Francis Burton

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

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

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

I will come anon and learn what is betiding.

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