Definition of "woe betide" []

• Bad things will happen to (verb)

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• "But woe betide if theold government whose intentions were after all good were replaced by a newone which was not so decent; then spineless compliance and childlike faithwere the gravest calamity that could be conceived of."
• "When the Queen and her ladies heard this, they burst out laughing, and the Queen said to my knight: "Tell your lord, that woe betide him the day that he made me kneel to his haircloth!""
• "So woe betide the marine whose choking black leather stock was not properly fastened around his neck or whose knee-length black leather spatterdashes were not properly buttoned."