come and go
Idioms-
Arrive and depart, either briefly or repeatedly; go to and fro. Shakespeare had it in The Merry Wives of Windsor (2:2): “He may come and go between you both.” [Late 1300s]
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Alternately appear and disappear, as in This rash is odd; it comes and goes . [Mid-1300s] Also see coming or going ; easy come, easy go .
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.
“So, as deadlines would come and go, he struggled to get cars up to production level.”
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 8, 2026
Cabinet officials come and go, but the near-immediate removal of Bondi’s image signaled something closer to erasure than transition, a rapid closing of ranks inside a department that had already been under pressure.
From Salon • Apr. 4, 2026
She acknowledges that her profession is not stable: Jobs come and go with campaign cycles.
From MarketWatch • Apr. 3, 2026
“Energy shocks have tended to come and go pretty quickly,” he said.
From Barron's • Mar. 30, 2026
Most importantly, we could come and go as we pleased.
From "The Boy on the Wooden Box" by Leon Leyson
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.
