come upon
verb1
To discover or find, especially by chance or accident.
- We came upon the skeleton while we were hiking.
- Kala sometimes talked with the older females about her young hopeful, but none of them could understand how a child could be so slow and backward in learning to care for itself. Why, it could not even find food alone, and more than twelve moons had passed since Kala had come upon it.1912 October, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “Tarzan of the Apes”, in The All-Story, New York, N.Y.: Frank A. Munsey Co., →OCLC; republished as chapter 5, in Tarzan of the Apes, New York, N.Y.: A[lbert] L[evi] Burt Company, June 1914, →OCLC:
2
To befall; to affect; to happen to.
- I pray no harm will come upon you.
- Derived terms
- come upon the parish, come upon the town