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

see also come up empty, come up with

Synonyms of come up

• come
• draw on
• close
• approach
• close in

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

Grunander denied that his daughter’s presence at the shooting motivated the decision to seek the death penalty for Robinson, adding that the topic did not come up when prosecutors discussed whether to seek the death penalty. —Jack Birle, The Washington Examiner, 4 Feb. 2026

Over the last several seasons of the Movies Fantasy League, the one thing that’s been more consistent than the movies, the awards, or Timmy Chalamet scoring a hit in December has been all you players coming up with some of the most clever, goofy, dumb, sometimes filthy names for your teams. —Joe Reid, Vulture, 3 Feb. 2026

The news release said the bill would also require the plan to produce an annual report and come up with formal financial plans to prepare for future wildfires. —Stephen Hobbs, Sacbee.com, 3 Feb. 2026

Jon Stewart is addressing his name coming up in the Epstein files – in a pitch for a hypothetical Woody Allen standup special. —Taijuan Moorman, USA Today, 3 Feb. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

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

Rhymes for come up

• buttercup
• backup
• blowup
• breakup
• buildup
• checkup
• cleanup
• holdup
• hookup
• lineup
• lockup
• makeup

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