"come at" meaning in English

See come at in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: EN-AU ck1 come at.ogg Forms: comes at [present, singular, third-person], coming at [participle, present], came at [past], come at [participle, past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|come<,,came,come> at}} come at (third-person singular simple present comes at, present participle coming at, simple past came at, past participle come at)
  1. (obsolete) To come to; to attend. Tags: obsolete Categories (topical): Violence Derived forms: come-at-able, come at me
    Sense id: en-come_at-en-verb-4RO4Hfu4 Disambiguation of Violence: 32 26 10 7 25 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English phrasal verbs formed with "at", Entries with translation boxes, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries, Terms with Finnish translations, Terms with French translations, Terms with Portuguese translations, Terms with Spanish translations Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 40 33 4 2 21 Disambiguation of English phrasal verbs formed with "at": 35 28 7 4 25 Disambiguation of Entries with translation boxes: 41 31 5 3 20 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 29 31 5 4 31 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 41 31 3 2 23 Disambiguation of Terms with Finnish translations: 40 29 5 3 22 Disambiguation of Terms with French translations: 39 29 8 5 19 Disambiguation of Terms with Portuguese translations: 37 25 8 3 28 Disambiguation of Terms with Spanish translations: 37 28 7 4 24
  2. (obsolete) To enter into sexual relations with; to come on to (someone). Tags: obsolete Categories (topical): Violence
    Sense id: en-come_at-en-verb-vOhjzsH~ Disambiguation of Violence: 32 26 10 7 25 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 40 33 4 2 21 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 29 31 5 4 31
  3. To get to, especially with effort or difficulty.
    Sense id: en-come_at-en-verb-tORDv5OW
  4. To attack (someone); to harass (someone); to challenge(someone) to a fight. Translations (To attack, harass, or challenge): hyökätä (Finnish), käydä päälle (Finnish), käydä kimppuun (Finnish), attaquer (French), atakować (Polish), nachodzić (Polish), atacar (Portuguese), atacar (Spanish), achorarse (english: Andes) (Spanish)
    Sense id: en-come_at-en-verb-CECWxaEY Disambiguation of 'To attack, harass, or challenge': 4 7 5 82 2
  5. (Australia, New Zealand, transitive, slang) To accept (a situation); to agree to do; to try. Tags: Australia, New-Zealand, slang, transitive Categories (topical): Violence
    Sense id: en-come_at-en-verb-zEJcDk-K Disambiguation of Violence: 32 26 10 7 25 Categories (other): Australian English, New Zealand English, English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 40 33 4 2 21 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 29 31 5 4 31

Inflected forms

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "comes at",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "coming at",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "came at",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "come at",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "come<,,came,come> at"
      },
      "expansion": "come at (third-person singular simple present comes at, present participle coming at, simple past came at, past participle come at)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "40 33 4 2 21",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "35 28 7 4 25",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English phrasal verbs formed with \"at\"",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "41 31 5 3 20",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Entries with translation boxes",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "29 31 5 4 31",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "41 31 3 2 23",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "40 29 5 3 22",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Finnish translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "39 29 8 5 19",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with French translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "37 25 8 3 28",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Portuguese translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "37 28 7 4 24",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Spanish translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "32 26 10 7 25",
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Violence",
          "orig": "en:Violence",
          "parents": [
            "Human behaviour",
            "Human",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "derived": [
        {
          "_dis1": "60 40 0 0 0",
          "word": "come-at-able"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "60 40 0 0 0",
          "word": "come at me"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To come to; to attend."
      ],
      "id": "en-come_at-en-verb-4RO4Hfu4",
      "links": [
        [
          "come to",
          "come to"
        ],
        [
          "attend",
          "attend"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(obsolete) To come to; to attend."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "obsolete"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "40 33 4 2 21",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "29 31 5 4 31",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "32 26 10 7 25",
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Violence",
          "orig": "en:Violence",
          "parents": [
            "Human behaviour",
            "Human",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To enter into sexual relations with; to come on to (someone)."
      ],
      "id": "en-come_at-en-verb-vOhjzsH~",
      "links": [
        [
          "enter",
          "enter"
        ],
        [
          "sexual relation",
          "sexual relation"
        ],
        [
          "come on",
          "come on"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(obsolete) To enter into sexual relations with; to come on to (someone)."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "obsolete"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "His precise meaning was not easy to come at.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To get to, especially with effort or difficulty."
      ],
      "id": "en-come_at-en-verb-tORDv5OW",
      "links": [
        [
          "get to",
          "get to"
        ],
        [
          "effort",
          "effort"
        ],
        [
          "difficulty",
          "difficulty"
        ]
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "As I backed away, he came at me with a knife.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "text": "a. 2001, Paul Keating, quoted in 2001, Brett Evans, The Life and Soul of the Party: A Portrait of Modern Labor, page 17,\n‘He thought he′d come at the Australian Labor Party from the left. He thought he′d tie up the Catholic Church and the East Timor constituency by coming at Labor from that quarter. That′s what it has been all about.’"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010, Michael Caulfield, editor, The Voices of War: Australians Tell Their Stories from World War I to the Present, unnumbered page:",
          "text": "Well I went to the recruiting office in Perth and the navy guy bailed me up first, ′cause they just come at you, like the navy guy comes at you, then the air force, ′cause they′ve got to get a quota I guess, and then the navy guy came at me and I told him about aviation and that I was keen on aviation and he′s off on his spiel about Sea Kings [helicopters] and all this sort of stuff and I think he might have fired guns or watched a radar or something on a boat somewhere, but he didn′t really know very much and then the army guy overheard him. He said ‘Aah. We′ve got all the helicopters, come over here.’",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010, Bob Ellis, One Hundred Days of Summer: How We Got to Where We Are, unnumbered page:",
          "text": "And if we got through that, they′d come at us again in February or March. Even if we′d got through the parliamentary session, they′d keep coming at us.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To attack (someone); to harass (someone); to challenge(someone) to a fight."
      ],
      "id": "en-come_at-en-verb-CECWxaEY",
      "links": [
        [
          "attack",
          "attack"
        ],
        [
          "harass",
          "harass"
        ],
        [
          "challenge",
          "challenge"
        ],
        [
          "fight",
          "fight"
        ]
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "_dis1": "4 7 5 82 2",
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "To attack, harass, or challenge",
          "word": "hyökätä"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "4 7 5 82 2",
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "To attack, harass, or challenge",
          "word": "käydä päälle"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "4 7 5 82 2",
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "To attack, harass, or challenge",
          "word": "käydä kimppuun"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "4 7 5 82 2",
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "To attack, harass, or challenge",
          "word": "attaquer"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "4 7 5 82 2",
          "code": "pl",
          "lang": "Polish",
          "sense": "To attack, harass, or challenge",
          "word": "atakować"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "4 7 5 82 2",
          "code": "pl",
          "lang": "Polish",
          "sense": "To attack, harass, or challenge",
          "word": "nachodzić"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "4 7 5 82 2",
          "code": "pt",
          "lang": "Portuguese",
          "sense": "To attack, harass, or challenge",
          "word": "atacar"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "4 7 5 82 2",
          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "sense": "To attack, harass, or challenge",
          "word": "atacar"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "4 7 5 82 2",
          "code": "es",
          "english": "Andes",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "sense": "To attack, harass, or challenge",
          "word": "achorarse"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Australian English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "New Zealand English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "40 33 4 2 21",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "29 31 5 4 31",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "32 26 10 7 25",
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Violence",
          "orig": "en:Violence",
          "parents": [
            "Human behaviour",
            "Human",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Nah, mate – I′m not going to come at that again. Too risky.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1922, Australian Parliament, Parliamentary Debates, volume 100, page 1139:",
          "text": "Mr. O'Loghlen: Do you think a factory would come at that?",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2000 October 24, Gary Meadows, “Is Scott Steel neutral in act-b? (was: The Great Australian Confusion)”, in aus.culture.true-blue (Usenet):",
          "text": "Somehow I don′t think ausadmin or news server managers at large would come at that idea.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2006, Kenneth Stanley Inglis, This is the ABC: The Australian Broadcasting Commission, 1932-1983, page 174:",
          "text": "[…]he would have liked to be a roving correspondent for both the ABC and the BBC, but the BBC would not come at that arrangement.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To accept (a situation); to agree to do; to try."
      ],
      "id": "en-come_at-en-verb-zEJcDk-K",
      "links": [
        [
          "accept",
          "accept"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(Australia, New Zealand, transitive, slang) To accept (a situation); to agree to do; to try."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "Australia",
        "New-Zealand",
        "slang",
        "transitive"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "EN-AU ck1 come at.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/43/EN-AU_ck1_come_at.ogg/EN-AU_ck1_come_at.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/EN-AU_ck1_come_at.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "word": "come at"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English phrasal verbs",
    "English phrasal verbs formed with \"at\"",
    "English verbs",
    "Entries with translation boxes",
    "Pages with 1 entry",
    "Pages with entries",
    "Terms with Finnish translations",
    "Terms with French translations",
    "Terms with Portuguese translations",
    "Terms with Spanish translations",
    "en:Violence"
  ],
  "derived": [
    {
      "word": "come-at-able"
    },
    {
      "word": "come at me"
    }
  ],
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "comes at",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "coming at",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "came at",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "come at",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "come<,,came,come> at"
      },
      "expansion": "come at (third-person singular simple present comes at, present participle coming at, simple past came at, past participle come at)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with obsolete senses"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To come to; to attend."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "come to",
          "come to"
        ],
        [
          "attend",
          "attend"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(obsolete) To come to; to attend."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "obsolete"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with obsolete senses"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To enter into sexual relations with; to come on to (someone)."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "enter",
          "enter"
        ],
        [
          "sexual relation",
          "sexual relation"
        ],
        [
          "come on",
          "come on"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(obsolete) To enter into sexual relations with; to come on to (someone)."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "obsolete"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with usage examples"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "His precise meaning was not easy to come at.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To get to, especially with effort or difficulty."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "get to",
          "get to"
        ],
        [
          "effort",
          "effort"
        ],
        [
          "difficulty",
          "difficulty"
        ]
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English terms with usage examples"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "As I backed away, he came at me with a knife.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "text": "a. 2001, Paul Keating, quoted in 2001, Brett Evans, The Life and Soul of the Party: A Portrait of Modern Labor, page 17,\n‘He thought he′d come at the Australian Labor Party from the left. He thought he′d tie up the Catholic Church and the East Timor constituency by coming at Labor from that quarter. That′s what it has been all about.’"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010, Michael Caulfield, editor, The Voices of War: Australians Tell Their Stories from World War I to the Present, unnumbered page:",
          "text": "Well I went to the recruiting office in Perth and the navy guy bailed me up first, ′cause they just come at you, like the navy guy comes at you, then the air force, ′cause they′ve got to get a quota I guess, and then the navy guy came at me and I told him about aviation and that I was keen on aviation and he′s off on his spiel about Sea Kings [helicopters] and all this sort of stuff and I think he might have fired guns or watched a radar or something on a boat somewhere, but he didn′t really know very much and then the army guy overheard him. He said ‘Aah. We′ve got all the helicopters, come over here.’",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010, Bob Ellis, One Hundred Days of Summer: How We Got to Where We Are, unnumbered page:",
          "text": "And if we got through that, they′d come at us again in February or March. Even if we′d got through the parliamentary session, they′d keep coming at us.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To attack (someone); to harass (someone); to challenge(someone) to a fight."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "attack",
          "attack"
        ],
        [
          "harass",
          "harass"
        ],
        [
          "challenge",
          "challenge"
        ],
        [
          "fight",
          "fight"
        ]
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "Australian English",
        "English slang",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English terms with usage examples",
        "English transitive verbs",
        "New Zealand English",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Nah, mate – I′m not going to come at that again. Too risky.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1922, Australian Parliament, Parliamentary Debates, volume 100, page 1139:",
          "text": "Mr. O'Loghlen: Do you think a factory would come at that?",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2000 October 24, Gary Meadows, “Is Scott Steel neutral in act-b? (was: The Great Australian Confusion)”, in aus.culture.true-blue (Usenet):",
          "text": "Somehow I don′t think ausadmin or news server managers at large would come at that idea.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2006, Kenneth Stanley Inglis, This is the ABC: The Australian Broadcasting Commission, 1932-1983, page 174:",
          "text": "[…]he would have liked to be a roving correspondent for both the ABC and the BBC, but the BBC would not come at that arrangement.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To accept (a situation); to agree to do; to try."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "accept",
          "accept"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(Australia, New Zealand, transitive, slang) To accept (a situation); to agree to do; to try."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "Australia",
        "New-Zealand",
        "slang",
        "transitive"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "EN-AU ck1 come at.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/43/EN-AU_ck1_come_at.ogg/EN-AU_ck1_come_at.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/EN-AU_ck1_come_at.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "To attack, harass, or challenge",
      "word": "hyökätä"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "To attack, harass, or challenge",
      "word": "käydä päälle"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "To attack, harass, or challenge",
      "word": "käydä kimppuun"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "To attack, harass, or challenge",
      "word": "attaquer"
    },
    {
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "sense": "To attack, harass, or challenge",
      "word": "atakować"
    },
    {
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "sense": "To attack, harass, or challenge",
      "word": "nachodzić"
    },
    {
      "code": "pt",
      "lang": "Portuguese",
      "sense": "To attack, harass, or challenge",
      "word": "atacar"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "To attack, harass, or challenge",
      "word": "atacar"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "english": "Andes",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "To attack, harass, or challenge",
      "word": "achorarse"
    }
  ],
  "word": "come at"
}

Download raw JSONL data for come at meaning in English (6.1kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-12-21 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-12-04 using wiktextract (d8cb2f3 and 4e554ae). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.