come

英文词源

come

come: [OE] Come is of course one of the basic words of English, and its history goes back to the language’s Indo-European roots. Here its distant ancestor was the base *gwem-, which also produced Greek baínein ‘go, walk’ (related to English base and basis) and Latin venīre ‘come’ (source of a whole range of English words from adventure to venue). The prehistoric Germanic descendant of *gwem- was *kweman or *kuman, which has produced German kommen, Dutch komen, Swedish komma, and English come. The compound become (source of comely) was formed in Germanic in prehistoric times.
=> adventure, base, basis, become, venue

come (v.)

Old English cuman "come, approach, land; come to oneself, recover; arrive; assemble" (class IV strong verb; past tense cuom, com, past participle cumen), from Proto-Germanic *kwem- (cognates: Old Saxon cuman, Old Frisian kuma, Middle Dutch comen, Dutch komen, Old High German queman, German kommen, Old Norse koma, Gothic qiman), from PIE root *gwa-, *gwem- "to go, come" (cognates: Sanskrit gamati "he goes," Avestan jamaiti "goes," Tocharian kakmu "come," Lithuanian gemu "to be born," Greek bainein "to go, walk, step," Latin venire "to come").

The substitution of Middle English -o- for Old English -u- before -m-, -n-, or -r- was a scribal habit before minims to avoid misreading the letters in the old style handwriting, which jammed letters. The practice similarly transformed some, monk, tongue, worm. Modern past tense form came is Middle English, probably from Old Norse kvam, replacing Old English cuom.

Remarkably productive with prepositions (NTC's "Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs" lists 198 combinations); consider the varied senses in come to "regain consciousness," come over "possess" (as an emotion), come at "attack," come on (interj.) "be serious," and come off "occur." For sexual senses, see cum.