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

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

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 Horsford, Mary Gardiner

Nevertheless, on this little earth, perhaps Ill betides the heart that leans overmuch on another.

From Hints for Lovers by Haultain, T. Arnold (Theodore Arnold)

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 Baldwin, James

Mother, that you are mov'd, this makes me wonder; When I departed, I did leave ye friends: What undigested jar hath since betided?

From A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 7 by Various

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

From New Poems by Stevenson, Robert Louis

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 Rossetti, William Michael

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 Bedford-Jones, H.

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

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

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 Beckford, William

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

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

From The Sundering Flood by Morris, May

O I know the Hand that is guiding me Through the shadow to the light; And I know that all betiding me Is meted out aright.

From Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul by Mudge, James

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 Zangwill, Israel