Come

How to spell come

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce come

What does come mean?

1. verbTo move or travel toward a particular place, person, or point.

Come in a sentence

• Please come to the meeting room before nine.

• The guests will come by train on Saturday.

Where does come come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a core native English word, descending directly from the Old English verb cuman, which meant 'to move toward, arrive, or approach'. It belongs to a large Germanic family, sharing its ancestry with the Dutch komen and the German kommen, and ultimately tracing back to a Proto-Indo-European root meaning 'to go' or 'to come'. The spelling is a small trap because the letters look as though they should rhyme with 'home' or 'dome'; instead the 'o' carries a short 'uh' sound, a leftover of older vowel shifts that left the look of the word out of step with its pronunciation. The irregular past tense 'came' and past participle 'come' are themselves survivals of the old Germanic strong-verb pattern. Because it is among the most frequently used verbs in the language, its odd spelling has simply been preserved by sheer familiarity.

How the word is built

• come (single Old English root verb; no prefix or suffix)