the devil to pay

Cultural  

1. Trouble to be faced as a result of one's actions: “When the principal hears of Bobby's pranks, there will be the devil to pay.”

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devil to pay, the Idioms  

1. Serious trouble resulting from some action, as in There'll be the devil to pay if you let that dog out. This expression originally referred to trouble resulting from making a bargain with the devil, but later was broadened to apply to any sort of problem. A variant, the devil to pay and no pitch hot, first recorded in 1865, gave rise to the theory that the expression was originally nautical, since pay also means “to waterproof a seam by caulking it with pitch,” and no pitch hot meant it was a particularly difficult job, since cold pitch is hard to use. However, the original expression is much older and is the one that survives. [c. 1400]

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Example Sentences

Plays to be played—'The Beau's Stratagem,' 'Beggar's Opera,' 'The Devil to Pay,' 'The Fair Penitent,' 'The Virgin Unmasked!' and a variety of farces and merry pantomimes—and the bills are only a penny, my lady!

From Project Gutenberg

“There’s going to be the devil to pay,” the police captain was saying.

From Project Gutenberg

By this time there was the devil to pay; the entrance saloon was crowded with military and naval men, high in oath, and headed by no less a person than a general officer, and a one—armed man, one of the chief civil officers in the place, and who had been a sailor in his youth.

From Project Gutenberg