come across
verb
Simple meaning
To give an appearance or impression.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
kuhmuhkrawsSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈkʌməkˈɹɔs
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
idiomatic
To give an appearance or impression; to project a certain image; to seem or appear (to be some way).
idiomatictransitive
To find, usually by accident.
idiomaticintransitive
To give in and do what is wanted or expected; to acquiesce to something.
Find unexpectedly
To produce what was desired; to come up with the goods. [with with]
Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see come, across.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: To give an appearance or impression; to project a certain image; to seem or appear (to be some way).
Used this way, come across is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.