comer

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English comere,^[2] formed from English come + -er, Middle English comen with the agent suffix.^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} The OED compares the Old English noun cuma (“visitor, stranger, guest”),^[4][8] an agent noun from the same Germanic base as come, with cognates such as Old Saxon kumo (“descendant, latecomer”) and the second part of Old High German niuwikomo (“novice”).^[4] Come is cuman.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

A person who comes or arrives; a visitor or newcomer: about 1390, in Langland's Piers Plowman,^[4][2] where friars, wanting to know the comers, keep someone among them as a friar.^[2] Etymonline dates it to the late 14th century.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The plain sense, a person who comes, soon became rare except after a qualifying word, as in last comer or late comer (from about 1400), and in the phrase all comers, everyone who comes,^[4] dated about 1450 by the OED and the 1560s by Etymonline;^[4][6] all comers now also means anyone who chooses to take part in a contest.^[5][3] Francis Bacon (1626) used it of plants that grow fast, a sense the OED marks as rare and obsolete;^[4] Johnson (1755) quoted that passage under "one that comes".^[9] In the late 19th century, after to come on, to make progress, the word came to mean a person or thing showing promise,^[4][10] first in 1879.^[4][6] Green's Dictionary of Slang finds this "promising newcomer" sense first in American use, as in a baseball book of 1890,^[10] and Collins labels it informal.^[11] Middle English also had comeling, a newcomer or stranger.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 1390 – a person who comes; a visitor.^[4][2]
• c. 1400 – after a modifier, as in last comer.^[4]
• c. 1450 – all comers.^[4] Etymonline dates the phrase to the 1560s.^[6]
• 1626 – of a plant, a grower (obsolete).^[4]
• 1879 – a person or thing that shows promise.^[4][6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A person who comes or arrives, now mostly after a modifier (newcomer, late comer) or in all comers.^[11][3][4]
2. all comers: anyone who chooses to come or to take part, as in a contest: The tournament is open to all comers.^[5][3]
3. (informal) A person or thing showing promise of quick progress or success; a promising newcomer: The young striker is a real comer.^{[11][3][4][10]}

Related words

• downcomer
• firstcomer
• latecomer
• newcomer
• come
• incomer
• welcome

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
9. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ a b c Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
11. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins