come up

verb

came up; come up; coming up; comes up

intransitive verb

1
2
: to come near : make an approach
came up and introduced himself
3
: to rise in rank or status
an officer who came up from the ranks
4
a
: to come to attention or consideration
the question never came up
b
: to occur in the course of time
any problem that may come up
5
: to turn out to be
the coin came up tails
6
chiefly dialectal : grow up
Phrases
come up empty
: to fail to achieve a desired result
come up with
: to produce especially in dealing with a problem or challenge
came up with a solution

Examples of come up in a Sentence

the girl came up to the counter and asked if she could have her order prepared to go let me know if anything else comes up during the project
Recent Examples on the Web Improvement, but many hospitals come up short Early on, hospitals were slow to disclose prices, and federal regulators responsible for enforcing the rule were criticized for being too slow to crack down on hospitals ignoring the rule. Sarah Volpenhein, Journal Sentinel, 22 Mar. 2024 This new video calls out the name of every musician when their parts come up in the track. Andy Greene, Rolling Stone, 22 Mar. 2024 Egg hunts coming up The city of Oceanside’s free annual Spring Egg Hunt is for ages 3-11 from 9 to 11 a.m. March 30 at Mance Buchanon Park, 425 College Blvd. Linda McIntosh, San Diego Union-Tribune, 22 Mar. 2024 But when the venerated actor and racer’s own reference 6239, gifted to him by his wife, came up for auction in 2017, the watch world collectively went berserk. Oren Hartov, Robb Report, 22 Mar. 2024 Winona Ryder, Trisha Yearwood and Rita Wilson came up as options for Poodle Moth’s identity. Dana Rose Falcone, Peoplemag, 21 Mar. 2024 The firm will be paid $65,000 to come up with a list of 10 to 20 candidates to lead the LAPD. Libor Jany, Los Angeles Times, 20 Mar. 2024 Out of sheer curiosity, because of your resemblance and your reign as the queen of HBO, did that part ever come up on your radar? Brian Davids, The Hollywood Reporter, 20 Mar. 2024 The album has a vaguely unsettling ambient intro, which evokes the ‘Master/Slave’ intro and outros on Ten. Jeff and Andrew came up with that. Jonathan Cohen, SPIN, 19 Mar. 2024

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'come up.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

First Known Use

before the 12th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Time Traveler
The first known use of come up was before the 12th century

Dictionary Entries Near come up

Cite this Entry

“Come up.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/come%20up. Accessed 28 Mar. 2024.

Kids Definition

come up

verb
1
: rise entry 1 sense 4
the sun comes up in an hour
2
: to come near or approach
came up and introduced himself
3
: to come to attention : introduce sense 4
the question came up again

More from Merriam-Webster on come up

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