Word.ws English Dictionary

came on

came on is the simple past of come on.

Meaning of come on

Verb

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

  1. (transitive) To encounter, discover; to come upon.
    • Turning the corner, I came on Julia sitting by the riverbank.
    Synonyms:
    come across
  2. (intransitive) To appear on a stage or in a performance.
    • I think he's coming on too late after my line.
  3. (intransitive, transitive) To be broadcast (through a device), or (of a broadcast) to begin playing.
    • I was going to turn off the TV, but my favorite show came on.
  4. (intransitive) To progress, to develop; to come along.
    • The new garden is coming on nicely.
  5. (intransitive, especially a light) To activate; to turn on.
    • The light came on as soon as I flicked the switch.
  6. (idiomatic, intransitive) To show sexual or relational interest through words or sometimes actions.
    • She started coming on to me as soon as my wife left the room.
    Synonyms:
    hit on, pass, proposition

See all 18 meanings of come on

Questions about came on

What is came on the simple past of?
Came on is the simple past of come on.

Words near came on in the dictionary

  1. came of
  2. came of age
  3. came off
  4. came off it
  5. came off second best
  6. came on
  7. came on over
  8. came on strong
  9. came on to
  10. came one's way
  11. came online

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: came on (page history and authors); come on (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 on.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/came_on. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.