come to

present singular third person comes to · participle present coming to · past came to

1. idiomaticintransitiveTo recover consciousness after fainting etc.

   She came to with the aid of smelling salts.

   Synonyms: come to one's senses, come back to one's senses, come to oneself, come round, come around, revive

2. idiomaticintransitivenauticalTo stop a sailing vessel, especially by turning into the wind. See also come about.

   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.

   1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I

3. transitiveTo total; to amount to.

   so how much does that come to?; the bill comes to £10 each

4. transitiveTo reach; to arrive at.

   Many sprouting crops never come to ear.

   4 more examples

   come to an end; come to a conclusion; come to an agreement; come to a halt

   I don't know what the world is coming to! Everything seems so crazy these days.

   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.

   2013 July 20, “The attack of the MOOCs”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8845

   Dr. Junaid Nabi, a physician-scientist who conducts research in health care technology at the RAND School in Washington, D.C. and is a senior fellow at the Aspen Institute, says he's come to realize that kindness isn't actually a trickle in the ocean. An act of kindness is more like dropping a stone that creates expanding ripples, he says.

   2025 November 13, Kamala Thiagarajan, “If you're going to be kind to another human, today is the day to do it!”, in NPR

5. transitiveTo seek help from.

   You can always come to me when you're feeling sad.

6. transitiveTo devote attention to in due course; to come around to.

   I'll come to your question in a minute.

7. transitiveTo befall; to happen to; to come upon.

   I pray no harm will come to you.

   1 more example

   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.

   1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter III, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC

   Synonyms: affect

8. presentregionaltransitiveTo regard or specifically pertain to.

   He's the best when it comes to detective fiction.

   1 more example

   When it comes to remorseless criminals, this guy takes the cake.

9. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see come, to.