Word.ws English Dictionary

to-come

to-come noun: something which is to come.

Noun

to-come (uncountable)

  1. (rare) Something which is to come.
    • They denote a factual to-come. Heidegger, on the other hand, holds that time originates in the to-come, regardless of contents.1999, James Risser, Heidegger toward the Turn, page 267
    • Of a discourse to come – on the to-come and repetition.2013, Maria-Daniella Dick, Derrida Wordbook, page 416
  2. (rare) The future.
    • The Past / Now stands before thee like an Incarnation / Of the To-come;1822, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Hellas, page 49
    • But, it is plain, they would not be competent to grapple with the 'To-come.'1849 January, Samuel Greatheed, Daniel Parken, Theophilus Williams, “The Literature of Gothic Architecture”, in The Eclectic Review, volume 25, page 37
    Synonyms:
    to-be

Examples of to-come in a sentence

  • Hope, not only as concerning the future state: that, it is to be trusted, all men possess: but hope as regards the present, and the to-come, of our little narrow world.1871 June 1, Charles William Wood, “Of Hope”, in The Argosy, volume 11, number 6, London: J. Ogden & Co., page 429:
  • You are the future, the to-come, of the world.1893, Annual Report of the School Committee of the City of Boston, page 464:
  • (In the to-come [future], however, I am hoping we will score our toneworks with the full resources of the most lavish orchestra!)2006, Malcolm Gillies, David Pear, Mark Carroll, Self-Portrait of Percy Grainger, page 122:
  • The to-come, let us say, the “absolute” future, as opposed to the future-present, is the object of our hope and desire, the stuff of a certain faith.2018, Jim Kanaris, Reconfigurations of Philosophy of Religion: A Possible Future, page 214:

Synonyms of to-come

Forms of to-come

alternative formtocome
alternative formto come

Origin of to-come

From to + come, perhaps continuing Middle English tocome, from Old English tōcyme (“a coming, an arrival, an approach, an advent”).

Questions about to-come

What does to-come mean?
To-come means something which is to come.
How do you use to-come in a sentence?
Hope, not only as concerning the future state: that, it is to be trusted, all men possess: but hope as regards the present, and the to-come, of our little narrow world.
What part of speech is to-come?
To-come is a noun.

Words near to-come in the dictionary

  1. to-and-fro
  2. to-and-fros
  3. to-be
  4. to-bread
  5. to-breads
  6. to-come
  7. to-date
  8. to-day
  9. to-days
  10. to-do
  11. to-do list

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: to-come (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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