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

And woe betide any member of the cabinet who upset his mistress.

From BBC ● Feb. 24, 2023

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

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

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

From Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 by Roby, John

Not content with making his tombstone a weapon of destruction to us, he pays the Abbey itself an occasional visit, and his appearance always betides some disaster to the family.

From The Lancashire Witches A Romance of Pendle Forest by Ainsworth, William Harrison

Marry! whatever betides I shall have seen London!”

From In Doublet and Hose A Story for Girls by De Land, Clyde Osmer

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.

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

And again he held him silent of bitter words or of sweet; And quoth Sigmund, "What hath betided? is an adder in the meat?"

From The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs by Morris, William

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

From New Poems by Stevenson, Robert Louis

But first Ile tel you what betided me after I was brought to Doctour Zacharies.

From The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life Of Jack Wilton With An Essay On The Life And Writings Of Thomas Nash By Edmund Gosse by Gosse, Edmund

I will come anon and learn what is betiding.

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

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

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

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

From The Grammar of English Grammars by Brown, Goold

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