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come to grief

Idioms  
  1. Meet with disaster or failure. For example, The icy runway caused at least one light plane to come to grief. [Mid-1800s]


Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

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Two oilmen would come to grief, more or less, in the 1920s.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 3, 2023

In the end, both Musk and Twitter may well come to grief.

From Washington Post ● Nov. 30, 2022

To the despair of their image-makers, some politicians' attempts to forge a bond with ordinary folk often come to grief.

From BBC ● Apr. 22, 2015

A widow who works as a nurse practitioner, she has also come to grief by a regrettable misstep.

From New York Times ● Nov. 11, 2014

But without any light they would soon have come to grief.

From "The Fellowship of the Ring" by J.R.R. Tolkien

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