Word.ws English Dictionary

bad comes to worse

bad comes to worse is the alternative form of worst comes to worst.

Meaning of worst comes to worst

Adverb

worst comes to worst (superlative form only)

  1. (idiomatic) If a possible worst-case scenario actually occurs.
    • “Worst comes to worst, we'll make it to Cleveland and we can set down there and wait things out.” Gordon Rand nearly sneered, “Worst comes to worst? We'll crash and die, isn't that closer to the worst end of the possibility spectrum?2010, Cherie Priest, Dreadnought: A Novel of the Clockwork Century

Forms of bad comes to worse

comparativemore bad comes to worse
superlativemost bad comes to worse

Questions about bad comes to worse

What is bad comes to worse the alternative form of?
Bad comes to worse is the alternative form of worst comes to worst.

Words near bad comes to worse in the dictionary

  1. bad cess
  2. bad check
  3. bad checks
  4. bad cholesterol
  5. bad cholesterols
  6. bad comes to worse
  7. bad comes to worst
  8. bad company
  9. bad conscience
  10. bad cop
  11. bad debt

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bad comes to worse (page history and authors); worst comes to worst (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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