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

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

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

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

From Children of the Mist by Eden Phillpotts

"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 John Roby

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

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

From The Story of Sigurd the Volsung by Winifred Turner

Hard by the bridge there was a stone cross upon a knoll, and here the group had collected—half a dozen women and one tall fellow in a russet smock—discussing what the bell betided.

From The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) by Robert Louis Stevenson

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 Victor Hugo

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

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 William Michael Rossetti

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

With no thought of ill betiding, "Thus," we said, "life's years shall be For us twain a river gliding To a calm, eternal sea."

From The Argosy Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 by Charles W. Wood

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

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

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