went pear-shaped

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...

   Synonyms:

   go downhill, go down the toilet, go Pete Tong, go sideways, go to pot, go to shit, go to the dogs, turn pear-shaped

   Antonyms:

   prosper, do well, do well for oneself, gain, grow, thrive, flourish, succeed