come by

1. 1.

   visit informally and spontaneously

   “We frequently drop by the neighbors' house for a cup of coffee”

   Synonymsdrop bydrop in

   Broadervisit
2. 2.

   obtain, especially accidentally

   Synonymscome into

   Broaderget

   Narrowerstumble

Questions about come by

What does come by mean?

come by means "visit informally and spontaneously". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

What is another word for come by?

Close synonyms include drop by, drop in, come into. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is come by a common word?

come by is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.