come forward

phrasal verb

came forward; come forward; coming forward; comes forward

: to make the effort required to provide information, make a claim, volunteer, etc.

No one has yet come forward to claim the reward.

Essex Police is now appealing for anyone with information or dash cam footage of the crash to come forward and help with their inquiries.

—Alex Gidden

The young woman … had come forward after six months to accuse him of assault.

—Jules De Cinque

also : to become publicly known

While the case was dropped the prosecutor says if substantial evidence came forward this case could go to a trial in the future …

—Don Granese

Examples of come forward in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

After Rapp initially came out with his story about Spacey, dozens of other people came forward with allegations of harassment, assault and rape against the actor. —Mathew Rodriguez, Them, 18 Feb. 2025

After an initial story on Jan. 30 and a follow up two days later, seven more women came forward in a Banner story published on Sunday. —Jeff Zrebiec, The Athletic, 17 Feb. 2025

Shortly after the initial investigative piece from the Banner dropped, three more massage therapists came forward to accuse the kicker of acting inappropriately, according to the outlet. —Ben Morse, CNN, 17 Feb. 2025

Munich police are asking witnesses to come forward with footage of the incident and information. —Rachel Wolf, Fox News, 13 Feb. 2025

Legal Definition

come forward

intransitive verb

come for·​ward

: to make a presentation of something to the court

—usually used with with

must come forward with materials to show that there is a genuine issue of fact

—J. H. Friedenthal et al.

coming forward with the evidence