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how come?
Idioms and Phrases
How is it that, as in How come you're not attending the conference? Sometimes how come follows a statement and asks the question “why” or “in what way,” as in You're not going? How come? The related phrase how so? functions the same way, as in You say she's changed her mind—how so? How come is short for how did it come about that and dates from the mid-1800s; how so , short for how is it so or how is it that, dates from about 1300.Example Sentences
I wondered, how come this is not a huge movie?
It was a good, really exciting morning, but still, I was like, “Is this true? Like, what’s going on? How come Netflix hasn’t called?”
According to his memoir, Allen told him, “You were great. How come you’re such a lousy auditioner?”
A corridor of massive potential but pathetic transport connections is the thrust of the argument – how come it takes two and a half hours by train to make a journey between two cities 66 miles apart?
“I’d be willing to have this arm cut off if I could understand how come the quantum? If I could understand how existence comes about,” Wheeler once said in a past interview.
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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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