Came

How to spell came

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce came

What does came mean?

1. verbThe past tense of 'come': moved toward or arrived at a place, or reached a particular state or result.

Came in a sentence

• The parcel came a day later than expected.

• She came to the meeting straight from the airport.

Where does came come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the past tense of 'come', which descends from the Old English verb 'cuman', meaning 'to move toward', 'to arrive', or 'to approach'. That verb traces back to the Proto-Germanic root that also gave German 'kommen' and Dutch 'komen', and ultimately to an ancient Indo-European root meaning 'to go' or 'to come'. English is unusual in forming the past tense by changing the inner vowel rather than adding an ending, a pattern called a strong verb, which is why we say 'came' instead of the regular-looking 'comed'. The spelling looks irregular because the modern vowel does not match the 'o' of 'come', a leftover of how these vowels shifted over centuries. Because it is such an ancient and frequently used word, it has kept its old strong past form right up to the present day.

How the word is built

• come (Old English cuman: to move toward) with vowel change marking the past tense (came)