Word.ws English Dictionary

come what may

come what may adverb: in spite of anything that might happen; whatever may occur.

Adverb

come what may (not comparable)

  1. (idiomatic) In spite of anything that might happen; whatever may occur.
    • He swore that, come what may, he'd never let her out of his sight again.
    • Come what come may, / Time, and the Houre, runs through the rougheſt Day.c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...

come what may meaning in Tagalog and Arabic

come what may in Tagalog

idiomatic
bahalà na

come what may in Arabic

idiomatic
مهما حصل

Examples of come what may in a sentence

  • [W]e are here of a set purpose and we will go forward with it, come what may.1905–1906, Arthur Conan Doyle, chapter 21, in Sir Nigel, London: Smith, Elder & Co., […], published January 1906, →OCLC:
  • Before I first saw you / Each day was just another day / Night the lonely interlude / Just came, then blew away / You know girl / Everything was come what may until you fell in my life1981, Quincy Jones, “Ai No Corrida”, in The Dude:
  • Still, now the prime minister remains "on message," reiterating that the election will be held in January, come what may.2004 September 23, Tony Karon, “Allawi Rides to Bush's Rescue”, in Time:
  • May it be, come what may, that I rest all my days in the goodness of Jesus.2018, Fiona Aghajanian, Harrison Druery, Michael Farren, Jaywan Maxwell, Jonny Robinson, Rich Thompson, “The Goodness of Jesus”, in Yet Not...

Synonyms of come what may

Words formed from come what may

Questions about come what may

What does come what may mean?
Come what may means in spite of anything that might happen; whatever may occur.
What is come what may in Tagalog?
Come what may in Tagalog is bahalà na. See Come what may meaning in Tagalog.
How do you use come what may in a sentence?
[W]e are here of a set purpose and we will go forward with it, come what may.
What part of speech is come what may?
Come what may is an adverb.

Words near come what may in the dictionary

  1. come up with the goods
  2. come up with the rations
  3. come upon
  4. come upon the parish
  5. come upon the town
  6. come what may
  7. come with
  8. come with it
  9. come with the territory
  10. come with the turf
  11. come Yorkshire over

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: come what may (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 what may.ogg.

Cite this entry: “come what may.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/come_what_may. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.