Word.ws English Dictionary

go pear-shaped

UK/ɡəʊ ˈpɛəʃeɪpt/US/ɡoʊ ˈpɛɚʃeɪpt/

go pear-shaped verb: to go awry; to go wrong.

Verb

go pear-shaped (third-person singular simple present goes pear-shaped, present participle going pear-shaped, simple past went pear-shaped, past participle gone pear-shaped)

  1. (Commonwealth, Ireland, UK, especially, idiomatic, intransitive) To go awry; to go wrong.
    • After the third attack run I was letting back down to low level, passing through about 100 feet on the way down, when there were two bangs very close together. The whole aircraft shook and things went "pear-shaped" very quickly after that.1983, Jeffrey Ethell, Alfred Price, quoting Bob Iveson, “To Goose Green and Beyond, 26 May – 7 June”, in Air War: South Atlantic (The Air Combat Trilogy; 3), New York, N.Y.: Macmillan Publishing...
    • Now the whole world economy seems to be going pear-shaped all at once[…].1991 January 7, Tim Power, quoting David Coles, “The business of survival”, in Evening Post, Reading, Berkshire: Thames Valley Newspapers, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 8, column 2

Synonyms of go pear-shaped

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of go pear-shaped

Forms of go pear-shaped

third-person singular presentgoes pear-shaped
present participlegoing pear-shaped
pastwent pear-shaped
past participlegone pear-shaped
alternative formgo pearshaped
alternative formgo pear shaped

Origin of go pear-shaped

Uncertain; the following etymologies have been suggested: * From the image of a solid rectangle “slipping down” into a pear shape, thus “the bottom drops out”. ** Similar thoughts about the work of either glassblowers or potters involve a theme of the work trending toward a sagging shape; such speculations may be only folk etymology. * From the image of a balloon or football losing its spherical shape after being punctured. * From an idea that people who shoulder the work — who have the responsibility on their shoulders — may descend into shirking, in which case their broad shoulders diminish as their body becomes pear-shaped. Apparently the term was originally Royal Air Force slang, but came into common use by the 1990s.

Questions about go pear-shaped

What does go pear-shaped mean?
Go pear-shaped means to go awry; to go wrong.
What part of speech is go pear-shaped?
Go pear-shaped is a verb.
How do you pronounce go pear-shaped?
Go pear-shaped is pronounced /ɡəʊ ˈpɛəʃeɪpt/ (UK).
What is the past tense of go pear-shaped?
The past tense of go pear-shaped is went pear-shaped.

Words near go pear-shaped in the dictionary

  1. go over someone's head
  2. go over to the majority
  3. go overboard
  4. go past
  5. go pear shaped
  6. go pear-shaped
  7. go pearshaped
  8. go pedal
  9. go pedals
  10. go Pete Tong
  11. go phut

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: go pear-shaped (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-go pear-shaped.ogg.

Cite this entry: “go pear-shaped.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/go_pear-shaped. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.