come upon

1. 1.

   find unexpectedly

   “the archeologists chanced upon an old tomb”

   “she struck a goldmine”

   “The hikers finally struck the main path to the lake”

   Synonymsfall uponstrikelight uponchance uponcome acrosschance onhappen uponattaindiscover

   Broaderfind
2. 2.

   take possession of

   “She entered upon the estate of her rich relatives”

   Synonymsenter uponluck into

   Broaderget

Questions about come upon

What does come upon mean?

come upon means "find unexpectedly". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

What is another word for come upon?

Close synonyms include fall upon, strike, light upon, chance upon, come across. 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 upon a common word?

come upon 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.