Meaning of woe betide | Babel Free

Definitions

Used to warn someone that trouble will occur if that person does something: bad things will happen to.

humorous, idiomatic, literary, transitive

Equivalents

Examples

“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.”

“"God save us!" cried the captain, / "For naught can man avail; / Oh, woe betide the ship that lacks / Her rudder and her sail!["]”

“A man, remember, whether rich or poor, should do something in this world. No one can find happiness without work. Woe betide the lazy fellow! Laziness is a serious illness and one must cure it immediately; yes, even from early childhood.”

“However, woebetide the male who takes that downward step into femininity.”

“And woe betide the peasant who protested! He would be lucky to escape with a few blows across the face from his lord's riding whip, for a noble landowner was also his peasant's judge and could punish him as he pleased.”

“[W]oe betide the person who wanders into a temple of the Neapolitan pie and asks for a ham and pineapple, or indeed the fool who demands a thin and crispy base in old-school Chicago.”

CEFR level