Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
🎯 To depend on ⬇️ To decrease 🌧️ To fall 🤒 To get sick 🗯️ To criticize 💻 To stop working
to come down

to come down

93 4.3
To become ill with a disease like a cold
  • phrasal verb
  • /kʌm daʊn/
translation icon : ponerse enfermo
  • Ten days later, I came down with a bad case of diarrhea.

Needless to say, he and his buddies came down with a bad case of the flu and it was.

Examples

  • Let's see who comes down with it.

    Fire Birds (1990)

  • I'm coming down with this cold, and I feel lousy.

    Kiss Me, Stupid (1964)

  • No, it's I came down with it yesterday.

  • His head felt heavy, as though he were coming down with something.

    Fiction book (2001)

  • A lot of kids coming down with a virus, all those attacks going on.

    Zombie Bro (2020)

  • At first, she thought she might be coming down with the flu.

    Fiction book (2000)

  • I feared I was coming down with one of those horrid migraines, but it seems a moment's rest was all I required.

    The Pale Blue Eye (2022)

  • Mr. Robertson came down with the flu that's going around, and he left a spelling list for Friday.

    Half-Life (2008)

  • I think I'm coming down with the flu, so I'll stay home today.

  • After spending time with her sick friend, she realized she was coming down with a cold.

Synonyms

to contract
vsto come down
70 4.3

Get an illness, for example the flu

is commonly expressed with a following preposition to name the illness
to take ill
vsto come down
9 5.6

To become sick suddenly

refers to catching a particular disease without implying sudden onset
to sicken
vsto come down
5 3.0

Begin to feel ill

refers to catching a particular disease rather than general sickness
down with the flu
vsto come down
5 3.3

Sick with the flu and unable to go out

describes catching a named disease rather than the ongoing state

Antonyms

to recover
748 2.5

Get back to a normal state after a loss, for example health or money

to heal
481 1.2

To become healthy again after an injury, illness, or emotional pain

How Sick

to succumb to
69 5.8
to strike down
  • NSFW
6 6.8
to come down
93 4.3
to catch
798 5.7

Surface Forms

come down infinitive
come down past participle
coming down present participle
comes down third person singular
came down past

Morphology

come + down

The meaning 'to stop functioning / become unavailable' is a metaphorical extension of the literal 'come' + 'down' (arrive at a lower state) where 'down' signals loss of operation or availability; this connection is related to other phrasal uses like 'go down' for services. However, the specific sense of system failure is not strictly predictable from the literal constituents for a B1 learner without prior exposure, so the relation is partial rather than fully transparent.

Etymology

Come down with a cold gives the image of an illness falling on someone so they begin to feel unwell. That's why come down with means 'to become ill with'.