go badly with

go badly with (someone or something)

To be unpleasant and/or full of challenges. Things are going badly with my sister—she's sick again and her husband just broke his foot. Things must be going badly with this assignment if you still haven't finished it.
See also: badly, go
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2022 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.

go badly with someone or something

[for something] to proceed badly for someone or something. I hope that things are not still going badly with you. Things are going very badly with the project.
See also: badly, go
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs. © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
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References in classic literature ?
'We must think of something else,' said the king; 'keep your shoes on when you go to bed, and before you come back from the place where you are taken, hide one of them there, I will soon contrive to find it.' The black manikin heard this plot, and at night when the soldier again ordered him to bring the princess, revealed it to him, and told him that he knew of no expedient to counteract this stratagem, and that if the shoe were found in the soldier's house it would go badly with him.
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I am so hungry, and it will go badly with me in the future, for I see here not an apple or pear or fruit of any kind--nothing but vegetables everywhere.' At last he thought, 'At a pinch I can eat a salad; it does not taste particularly nice, but it will refresh me.' So he looked about for a good head and ate it, but no sooner had he swallowed a couple of mouthfuls than he felt very strange, and found himself wonderfully changed.
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"If you have no answer, it may go badly with you at the trial."
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