come by, come about/ come to pass

Gold, God and forgiveness

Two exhibitions of 15th-century painting highlight what drove the Renaissance

Dec 17th 2011 | FLORENCE | from the print edition

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DO BANKERS inevitably go to hell? What many people today merely hope will come to pass was for Christians in the early 1400s a matter of faith.


He sheepishly admits that he’s the man who ruined Rao’s, the tiny Italian restaurant in East Harlem where tables have always been hard to come by. After Mr. Epstein published “Rao’s Cookbook,” by Frank Pellegrino, an owner of the restaurant, and it became a best seller, the place was swamped and its vibe changed.

come about

1. Also, come to pass. Happen, take place, as in How did this quarrel come about? or When did this new development come to pass? Shakespeare used the first term, first recorded in 1315, in Hamlet (5:2): "How these things came about." The variant, dating from the late 1400s, appears often in the Bible, as in, "And it came to pass ... that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus" (Luke 2:1).
2. Also, go about. In sailing, to change tack (direction), as in It's important to duck under the boom when we come about. [Mid-1500s]





come by

1. Acquire, obtain, as in A good assistant is hard to come by. This usage, dating from about 1600, superseded the earlier sense of acquiring something with considerable effort. A variant is come by honestly, meaning "to obtain in some honorable or logical way." For example, I'm sure she didn't come by that large bonus honestly or He does have an unusual gait but he came by it honestly; his father's is the same.
2. Stop in, visit, as in Please come by whenever you're in the neighborhood. [Late 1800s]