Chapter Comb to Commendam of C by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Come Over One (To). To wheedle one to do or give something. (Anglo-Saxon, ofer-cuman, to overcome.) To come over one is in reality to conquer or get your own way.

Come Round (See Coming , etc.).

Come Short (To). Not to be sufficient. “To come short of” means to miss or fail of attaining.

Come That as, Can you come that? I can't come that. Here, “come” means to arrive at, to accomplish.

Come the Religious Dodge (To) means to ask or seek some favour under pretence of a religious motive. Here “come” means to come and introduce. (See Dodge)

Come to Amount to, to obtain possession. “It will not come to much.”

Come to Grief (To). To fail, to prove a failure, as, “the undertaking (or company) came to grief,” i.e. to a grievous end.

Come to Hand (It has). Been received. “Come into my hand.” In Latin, ad manus (alicujus) pervenire.

“Your letter came to hand yesterday.”- A. Trollope.

Come to Pass (To). To happen, to befall, to come about.

“What thou hast spoken is come to pass.”- Jer. xxxii. 24.

“It came to pass in those days that there went out a decree.”- Luke ii. 1.

Come to an End To terminate. The allusion is to travelling, when the traveller has come to the end of his journey.

Come to the Hammer To be sold by auction.

Come to the Heath To tip. A pun taken from the place called Tip-tree Heath, in Essex. Our forefathers, and the French too, delighted in these sort of puns. A great source of slang. (See Chivy .)

Come to the Point Speak out plainly what you want, do not beat about the bush, but state at once what you wish to say. The point is the gist or grit of a thing. Circumlocution is wandering round the point with words; to come to the point is to omit all needless speech, and bring all the straggling rays to a focus or point.

Come to the Scratch (See Scratch .)

Come to the Worst If the worst come to the worst; even if the very worst occurs.

Come Under (To). To fall under; to be classed under.

Come Up Marry, come up! (See Marry .) “To come up to” means to equal, to obtain the same number of marks, to amount to the same quantity.

Come Upon the Parish (To). To live in the workhouse; to be supported by the parish.

Come Yorkshire over One (To). To bamboozle one, to overreach one. Yorkshire has always been proverbial for shrewdness and sharp practice. “I's Yorkshire too” means, I am 'cute as you are, and am not to be taken in.

Comedy means a village-song (Greek, Kome-ode), referring to the village merry-makings, in which comic songs still take a conspicuous place. The Greeks had certain festal processions of great licentiousness,