come by
Britishverb
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Acquire, obtain, as in A good assistant is hard to come by . This usage, dating from about 1600, superseded the earlier sense of acquiring something with considerable effort. A variant is come by honestly , meaning “to obtain in some honorable or logical way.” For example, I'm sure she didn't come by that large bonus honestly or He does have an unusual gait but he came by it honestly; his father's is the same .
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Stop in, visit, as in Please come by whenever you're in the neighborhood . [Late 1800s]
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Exact data for whey prices is harder to come by than for some other commodities, and historical comparisons aren’t always readily available.
From MarketWatch • Jun. 11, 2026
Skeptics fear that these companies are raising money at a euphoric moment in public markets and further returns will be hard to come by.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 5, 2026
Taking misoprostol alone has also become a standard treatment for unwanted pregnancies in countries where mifepristone is harder to come by.
From Slate • May 18, 2026
Since Palace were formed in 1905, they have found trophies hard to come by.
From BBC • May 7, 2026
He had a hard look in his eye, and I've been around Underhill long enough to know a guy doesn't come by that kind of coldness so casual.
From "How It Went Down" by Kekla Magoon
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
