betide

And woe betide you if you haven’t prepared as well as she has.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 20, 2026

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

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

“An’ you promise to say no word, whatever betides, an’ whatever you hear?”

From Children of the Mist by Eden Phillpotts

“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

Piecemeal I will rend the crown, The ivy-crown which, dear, I guard for thee, Inwov'n with scented parsley and with flowers: Oh I am desperate—what betides me, what?—

From Theocritus, translated into English Verse by Theocritus

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

Betide, p.t. betided; p.p. betid; to happen, come to pass, e.g.

From The Story of Sigurd the Volsung by Winifred Turner

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

Now paupers got sick and got well as Nature pleased: but woe betided the rich in an age when, for one Mr. Malady killed, three fell by Dr. Remedy.

From The Cloister and the Hearth A Tale of the Middle Ages by Charles Reade

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 John Payne

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 William Beckford

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 James Mudge

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

I will come anon and learn what is betiding.

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

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