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

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

Whate'er betides, all beauty still is mine,     I drink—as did the old gods—of its wine!

From The Ballad of the Quest by Virna Sheard

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

Whate'er betides us—grief or happiness— The brave and wise will bear with steady mind, The allotment, unforeseen and undefined, Of good or evil, which the Gods bestow, Promiscuously dealt to man below.

From Life and Literature Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, and classified in alphabetical order by John Purver Richardson

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 Edmund Gosse

He told them what had betided him and themseemed, by the host's counsel, that he were best depart Naples incontinent.

From The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio by John Payne

They bade Rose remain in the garden for the next few hours, and they would hide in a clump of bushes at the corner and watch what betided.

From Tom Tufton's Travels by Evelyn Everett-Green

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

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

From The Grammar of English Grammars by Goold Brown

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

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

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

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

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