come to

come to idiom
  1. Recover consciousness, as in She fainted but quickly came to. [Second half of 1500s]
  2. Arrive at, learn, as in I came to see that Tom had been right all along. [c. 1700]
  3. See amount to, def. 2.
  4. See when it comes to.
  5. Stop a sailboat or other vessel by bringing the bow into the wind or dropping anchor, as in “The gale having gone over, we came to” (Richard Dana, Two Years Before the Mast, 1840). [Early 1700s] Also see the subsequent entries beginning with come to.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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