TO COME TO GRIEF, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To come to ruin; to meet with an accident; to fail. In quot., 1891 = trouble.
1855. THACKERAY, The Newcomes, ch. x. We drove on to the Downs, and we were nearly COMING TO GRIEF. My horses are young, and when they get on the grass they are as if they were mad.
1888. Cassell’s Saturday Journal, 8 Dec., p. 249. In the United States he had started a ‘Matrimonial Agency,’ in which he had COME TO GRIEF, and he had been obliged to return to this country for a similar reason.
1891. The Sportsman, 28 Feb. The flag had scarcely fallen than the GRIEF commenced, as Midshipmite and Carlo rolled over at the first fence, Clanranald refused at the second, and Dog Fox fell at the third.
