woe betide
verb/ˌwəʊ bɪˈtaɪd/UK/ˌwoʊ bəˈtaɪd/US
Etymology
From Early Modern English woe (“great sadness or distress; calamity, trouble”) + betide (“to happen to, befall”), formerly used to decry a person’s actions. Grammatically, the verb is in the subjunctive mood.
Definitions
Used to warn someone that trouble will occur if that person does something
Used to warn someone that trouble will occur if that person does something: bad things will happen to.
- Woe betide you if you try that with my sister again!
- O gentle Aaron, we are all vndone. / Now helpe, or woe betide thee euermore.
- Woe betide the Subſcribers, their Children and Wives, / This Action ſhall coſt 'em five hundred Folks Lives.
The neighborhood
Vish — recursive loop
No curated loop yet for woe betide. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.
sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA