come about

verb

1. to take place; happen

2. nautical to change tacks

Idioms and Phrases

Also, come to pass . Happen, take place, as in How did this quarrel come about? or When did this new development come to pass? Shakespeare used the first term, first recorded in 1315, in Hamlet (5:2): “How these things came about.” The variant, dating from the late 1400s, appears often in the Bible, as in, “And it came to pass ... that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus” (Luke 2:1).

Also, go about . In sailing, to change tack (direction), as in It's important to duck under the boom when we come about . [Mid-1500s]

Example Sentences

As for how the memoir came about in a broader sense, Smith refers back to a “fully formed dream” she had a decade ago, in which a messenger came to her door bearing a book.

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“Cow—I mean, how—does this even come about?”

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“No, you will not—not if you want her to live. However this ‘misunderstanding’ came about, you must carry on as if it were true.

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It would take some sort of shock event for a recession to really come about at this point.

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These cases came about three years after the Algerian national was flagged in February 2020 as a probable visa overstayer, having entered the UK legally on a visitor's visa in 2019.

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