Word.ws English Dictionary

come in handy

come in handy verb: to prove to be useful or helpful.

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.
    • This is where what I learned in High School really came in handy.2010, Vernon Lucas, Standing in the Shadows of Street Legends, Xlibris, page 40

Forms of come in handy

third-person singular presentcomes in handy
present participlecoming in handy
pastcame in handy
past participlecome in handy

Questions about come in handy

What does come in handy mean?
Come in handy means to prove to be useful or helpful.
What part of speech is come in handy?
Come in handy is a verb.
What is the past tense of come in handy?
The past tense of come in handy is came in handy.

Words near come in handy in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: 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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-come in handy.ogg.

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