Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
to go pear-shaped

to go pear-shaped

3 7.9
To fail or go badly wrong, especially a plan
  • phrasal verb
  • UK
translation icon : salir mal
  • Let's face it—any time the guy goes off script, the whole thing goes pear-shaped.
  • if things go pear-shaped

I feel like if something that you're really looking forward to goes pear shaped, it is for a reason.

Examples

  • Then it all goes pear-shaped.

    Blog text (19)

  • Look, the whole thing just went pear-shaped.

    Ride Along 2 (2016)

  • - This is going pear-shaped.

    A Few Best Men (2011)

  • Like when everything went pear-shaped...

    Sweet Home Alabama (2002)

  • It's all gone pear-shaped, mate.

    Human Traffic (1999)

  • The whole aircraft shook and things went "pear-shaped" very quickly after that.

    Blog text (33)

  • Bring the wrong feelings into a magic-working, and it could all go pear-shaped.

    Blog text (29)

  • If we can't enforce contracts, then it all goes pear-shaped.

    Blog text (27)

  • Things are going pear-shaped.

    Blog text (33)

  • If our plans go pear-shaped, we have a backup ready.

Synonyms

to go wrong
vsto go pear-shaped
495 2.4

To fail or happen in a bad way

is used for situations that become clearly unsuccessful or serious failures
to go awry
vsto go pear-shaped
21 5.3

To happen in a way that is not planned or expected

is about situations becoming unsuccessful rather than merely missing planned expectations
to go off the rails
vsto go pear-shaped
  • Informal
19 7.3

To become chaotic and stop following a plan

is about becoming unsuccessful rather than specifically deviating into chaos
to go in the toilet
vsto go pear-shaped
  • Informal
1 7.9

To fail completely

is about failure that may be serious but not necessarily total ruin
the wheels fell off
vsto go pear-shaped
  • Informal
9.8

A situation that suddenly goes wrong after working well

is used for becoming unsuccessful without implying a sudden breakdown

Antonyms

to succeed
846 2.0

To reach a goal after trying hard

How Bad

to collapse
579 3.9
to fall apart
155 2.8
to go pear-shaped
  • UK
3 7.9
to go wrong
495 2.4

Surface Forms

go pear-shaped infinitive
went pear-shaped past
gone pear-shaped past participle
going pear-shaped present participle
goes pear-shaped third person singular

Morphology

go + pear-shaped

The grammatical pattern 'go + adjective' signals a change of state (become X), so a B1 learner would expect the phrase to mean 'become [something]', providing partial transparency. However, the adjective 'pear-shaped' does not literally or predictably mean 'unsuccessful' from its constituents (pear + shaped) and is an informal, chiefly British idiom, so the specific sense 'go wrong' is not fully inferable without exposure.

Etymology

The idiom go pear-shaped may come from a simple picture: one popular story says a plan or object that should be even or straight ends up bulging and odd, like something that has turned pear-shaped. So when things go pear-shaped they 'go wrong' or fail.