turn to custard
A brilliantly vivid New Zealand idiom meaning to go completely wrong, fall apart, or descend into chaos.
Definitions
A brilliantly vivid New Zealand idiom meaning to go completely wrong, fall apart, or descend into chaos. When a plan, situation, or event turns to custard, it's not a minor hiccup — it's full collapse into a wobbly, formless mess, which is exactly what custard does when you don't follow the recipe. The phrase captures that particular combination of disappointment and absurdity that comes with spectacular failure. Widely used across New Zealand in casual and professional contexts alike.
The event was going fine until the sound system broke and the whole thing turned to custard.
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(New Zealand) To go badly awry.
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A comedic British slang term for the penis, relying on the absurdist imagery of combining a dessert topping with military hardware. This is firmly in the tradition of silly, juvenile British euphemisms that achieve their effect through sheer ridiculousness rather than aggression. It's the kind of phrase that turns up in schoolyard banter, crude comedy, and any context where someone prefers a laugh over a clinical term.
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