come by

British  

verb

1. (intr, preposition) to find or obtain (a thing), esp accidentally

   do you ever come by any old books?

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come by Idioms  

1. 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 This usage, dating from about 1600, superseded the earlier sense of acquiring something with considerable effort.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 .

2. Stop in, visit, as in Please come by whenever you're in the neighborhood . [Late 1800s]

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

come by

Exact numbers of Afghan civilian deaths are harder to come by, but we know they are in the tens of thousands.

From Slate ● Sep. 11, 2026

Demographic data, however, is harder to come by.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 9, 2026

The recent government scrutiny of deals by Walter’s insurance companies seemed to come by chance.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 18, 2026

"First and foremost, you need to understand that football is a very expensive venture, especially on the African continent where the resources are not easy to come by," he told Newsday on BBC World Service.

From BBC ● Jul. 31, 2026

“An ambulance will come by in a second,” said the Kaddish boy, almost sympathetically.

From "Night Owls" by A.R. Vishny

Related Words

• come over
• drop by
• drop in