come down the pike
come down the pike verb: to emerge, come up; be about to happen; to approach or arrive on the scene; to present (itself or oneself).
Verb
come down the pike (third-person singular simple present comes down the pike, present participle coming down the pike, simple past came down the pike, past participle come down the pike)
- To emerge, come up; be about to happen; to approach or arrive on the scene; to present (itself or oneself).
- "[T]hey're the finest football leaders that ever came down the pike."1902, Ralph Henry Barbour, chapter 11, in Behind the Line
- Alfred Stieglitz was the best photographer ever to come down the pike.1949 November 14, “Art: Many Ways”, in Time, archived from the original on 07 Mar 2016
- Synonyms:
- come down the line, come down the road
Synonyms of come down the pike
Forms of come down the pike
| third-person singular present | comes down the pike |
|---|---|
| present participle | coming down the pike |
| past | came down the pike |
| past participle | come down the pike |
Origin of come down the pike
From pike, short for turnpike (“toll expressway”).
Questions about come down the pike
- What does come down the pike mean?
- Come down the pike means to emerge, come up; be about to happen; to approach or arrive on the scene; to present (itself or oneself).
- What part of speech is come down the pike?
- Come down the pike is a verb.
- What is the past tense of come down the pike?
- The past tense of come down the pike is came down the pike.
Words near come down the pike in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: come down the pike (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.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “come down the pike.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/come_down_the_pike. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
