come across


verb(intr)
  1. (preposition) to meet or find by accident

  2. (adverb) (of a person or his or her words) to communicate the intended meaning or impression

  1. (often foll by with) to provide what is expected

Words Nearby come across

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

How to use come across in a sentence

  • A very interesting way of studying Ferns is that of collecting the fronds of the species which the hunter may come across.

    How to Know the Ferns | S. Leonard Bastin
  • She meets a sympathetic soul, and you come across her pouring into his ear the love and despair of a lifetime.

  • I shudder when I chance to come across a really well-read and enlightened man!

  • They had invited him to come across to their quarters, but he had explained that he was awaiting mademoiselle.

    The Doctor of Pimlico | William Le Queux
  • In all my experience I have come across less than a dozen men whom I should imagine to rank among the shady division.

    The Chequers | James Runciman

Other Idioms and Phrases with come across

come across

Also, come upon; run across. Meet or find by chance, as in I came across your old letters today, or He came upon her looking in the store window. or If I run across it, I'll call you. The first term dates from the 1800s. The first variant was used by Oliver Goldsmith in She Stoops to Conquer (1773): “You are to go sideways till you come upon Crack-Skull Common.” The second variant was used by Mark Twain in Tramp Abroad (1880): “If I don't run across you in Italy, you hunt me up in London.”

The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.