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come by

SEE SYNONYMS FOR come by ON THESAURUS.COM

verb

(intr, preposition) to find or obtain (a thing), esp accidentallydo you ever come by any old books?

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Words nearby come by

come at, come-at-able, come away, comeback, come between, come by, come clean, COMECON, comedian, comedic, Comédie Française
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

Words related to come by

drop in, drop by, come over, get, obtain, procure, secure, win, lay hold of, call, look up, meet, run in, see, step in, visit, look in, pay a call, pop in, stop by

Idioms and Phrases with come by

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 This usage, dating from about 1600, superseded the earlier sense of acquiring something with considerable effort.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

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