come to

English

Pronunciation

• For the intransitive senses ("recover consciousness" and nautical), the emphasis is on the second word ("come to").
• For the transitive senses, the first word is accented ("come to").

Verb

come to (third-person singular simple present comes to, present participle coming to, simple past came to, past participle come to)

1. (intransitive, idiomatic) To recover consciousness after fainting etc.

   She came to with the aid of smelling salts.

2. (intransitive, idiomatic, nautical) To stop a sailing vessel, especially by turning into the wind. See also come about.
   • 1902, Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, Tank Form Ltd 2007, p. 1:

     The flood had made, the wind was nearly calm, and being bound down the river, the only thing for it was to come to and wait for the turn of the tide.

3. (transitive) To total; to amount to.

   So how much does that come to?

   The bill comes to £10 each.

4. (transitive) To reach; to arrive at.

   come to an end

   come to a conclusion

   come to an agreement

   come to a halt

5. (transitive) To devote attention to in due course; to come around to.

   I'll come to your question in a minute.

6. (transitive) To befall; to affect; to happen to; to come upon.

   I pray no harm will come to you.

7. (transitive, usually in present tense) To regard or specify, as narrowing a field of choices by category.

   He's the best when it comes to riveting detective fiction.

   When it comes to remorseless criminals, this guy takes the cake.

Anagrams

• moc toe