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

Now I bid you go to Combwich hill, there to wait what betides.

From A Thane of Wessex by Whistler, Charles W. (Charles Watts)

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 Bowring, John

"Save thee, father! peril betides him who would hazard a message to my lady without her husband's leave."

From Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 by Roby, John

They were not apprized of any inconvenience or danger that betided her.

From Ormond, Volume III (of 3) or, The Secret Witness by Brown, Charles Brockden

When the peahen saw what had betided the duck, she came down from the tree, saying, 'I see that misfortunes lie in wait for all.

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

Now it betided,   Heaven's gate being partly open, that there glided A fair dream forth, and hovered o'er his sleep.

From Poems by Hugo, Victor

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 Burton, Richard Francis, Sir

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 Stevenson, Robert Louis

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 Sheard, Virna

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

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

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

I will come anon and learn what is betiding.

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