• Come to

    Pronunciation

    • For the intransitive senses ("recover consciousness" and nautical), the emphasis is on the second word ("come to").
    • For the transitive senses, the first word is accented ("come to").

    Full definition of come to

    Verb

    1. (intransitive, idiomatic) To recover consciousness after fainting etc.
      She came to with the aid of smelling salts.
    2. (intransitive, idiomatic, nautical) To stop a sailing vessel, especially by turning into the wind. See also come about.
      • 1899, Joseph Conrad, ,The flood had made, the wind was nearly calm, and being bound down the river, the only thing for it was to come to and wait for the turn of the tide.
    3. (transitive) To total; to amount to.
      so how much does that come to?;  the bill comes to £10 each
    4. (transitive) To reach; to arrive at.
      • 2013-07-20, The attack of the MOOCs, Dotcom mania was slow in coming to higher education, but now it has the venerable industry firmly in its grip. Since the launch early last year of Udacity and Coursera, two Silicon Valley start-ups offering free education through MOOCs, massive open online courses, the ivory towers of academia have been shaken to their foundations.
    5. come to an end;  come to a conclusion;  come to an agreement;  come to a halt
    6. (transitive) To devote attention to in due course; to come around to.
      I'll come to your question in a minute.
    7. (transitive) To befall; to affect; to happen to; to come upon.
      • 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, Mr. Pratt's Patients Chapter 3, My hopes wa'n't disappointed. I never saw clams thicker than they was along them inshore flats. I filled my dreener in no time, and then it come to me that 'twouldn't be a bad idee to get a lot more, take 'em with me to Wellmouth, and peddle 'em out. Clams was fairly scarce over that side of the bay and ought to fetch a fair price.
    8. I pray no harm will come to you.
    9. (transitive, usually in present tense) To regard or specify, as narrowing a field of choices by category.
      He's the best when it comes to riveting detective fiction.
      When it comes to remorseless criminals, this guy takes the cake.

    Anagrams

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