for the love of Pete

for the love of Pete

A mild oath of shock, exasperation, annoyance, frustration, or anger, with "Pete" being a euphemistic substitution for "God." For the love of Pete, I didn't even see that car coming! Would you let me finish my story, for the love of Pete? Oh for the love of Pete, I just had the car fixed and now you've put a dent in it!
See also: love, of, Pete
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.
See also:
  • for the love of Mike
  • For the love of Mike!
  • the lights are on but no one is at home
  • the lights are on but nobody's home
  • the lights are on, but no one's home
  • the lights are on, but nobody's home
  • for the love of Mike/Pete/God
  • sneaky
  • sneaky Pete
  • honest to Pete
References in periodicals archive
But during the reality of the moment, I told them, "Just give me five minutes, for the love of Pete!"
I can't complain
For the love of Pete, I wanted to yelp at the 78-year-old historian who has spent 38 years chronicling Lyndon Johnson in more than 3,388 pages, was he ever going to get to Vietnam?
Two presidents, two wartime legacies
But please, for the love of Pete, enough with the pink guns!
Kids and guns
Look, I'm not expecting the good people of Blighty to know the difference between the UDA and the UVF but, for the love of Pete, it's no wonder the Empire was lost if they don't even know where Sharon Corr comes from.
Shane on Screen: Conflicts doc went from bad to wars
(Why, for the love of Pete, do they offer fee-based access to information that is easily available for free instead of proprietary information that people would be willi ng to pay for?) So, not only was I unable to point my client to the most comprehensive source of information, but I also had to walk the people representing the product through the steps to search their own system.
Take My Credit Card, Please!