come up

verb

came up; come up; coming up; comes up

intransitive verb

1

: rise sense 6

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

Synonyms

• approach
• belly up
• close
• close in
• draw on
• near
• nigh

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

The city hasn’t collected much concrete data, according to Mayor Thomas Wong, who was born and raised in Monterey Park and who says the migrant issue has not come up at his town hall meetings. —Melanie Stetson Freeman, The Christian Science Monitor, 22 May 2024

To some viewers’ surprise, the topic of Brady kissing his son never came up during the roast. —Zack Sharf, Variety, 22 May 2024

And in their one chance to erase a night-long deficit — the Diamondbacks opened the scoring with two runs in the second inning — the Dodgers came up short, leaving a potential tying run stuck in scoring position to end a sixth-inning rally. —Houston Mitchell, Los Angeles Times, 22 May 2024

Father’s Day, the day to honor your dad and celebrate fatherhood, is coming up soon. —Heidi Finley, Charlotte Observer, 21 May 2024

To the extent that childbearing came up, the conversation was often about preventing new cases of the disease. —Eric Boodman, STAT, 21 May 2024

Followup documents show that Myers was coming up short in two areas: professionalism and communication/collaboration. —Daniel Bice, Journal Sentinel, 20 May 2024

Hundreds of people gathered in a Texas city to try and break a unique world record, but ultimately came up short once again. —Abigail Adams, Peoplemag, 20 May 2024

The Panthers came up empty on their two power-play opportunities but did fire off four shots on goal and get five scoring chances. —Jordan McPherson, Miami Herald, 11 May 2024

Word History

First Known Use

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

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