Meaning of Idiom ‘Go pear-shaped’
When something goes pear-shaped it has gone wrong; to fail completely; to produce an unexpected result.
Sentence Examples
“He got his restaurant open and it was doing well but it all went pear-shaped when he found out that he needed all new wiring and his walk-in refrigerator had to be replaced.”
“Yes, things have gone pear-shaped but we’ll get back on our feet. All we need is one good deal.”
“This project was supposed to be finished by the end of December but with the new lawsuit environmental impact survey, the whole thing has gone pear-shaped.”
Origin
Although it may seem to be an allusion to a woman gaining weight on her hips, the idiom ‘go pear-shaped’ actually derived as Royal Air Force slang describing, in quite exaggerated terms, the shape of an aircraft that crashes in a nose-dive. The phrase is most often heard as ‘it all went pear-shaped.’
