Word.ws English Dictionary

came in handy

came in handy is the simple past of come in handy.

Meaning of come in handy

Verb

come in handy (third-person singular simple present comes in handy, present participle coming in handy, simple past came in handy, past participle come in handy)

  1. (idiomatic, informal) To prove to be useful or helpful.
    • Even though he doesn't really know how to use them, he keeps the tools around, figuring they might come in handy someday.

Questions about came in handy

What is came in handy the simple past of?
Came in handy is the simple past of come in handy.

Words near came in handy in the dictionary

  1. came home by weeping cross
  2. came home to roost
  3. came in
  4. came in for
  5. came in from the cold
  6. came in handy
  7. came in hot
  8. came in useful
  9. came into
  10. came into being
  11. came into force

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: came in handy (page history and authors); come in handy (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “came in handy.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/came_in_handy. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.