Word Pronunciation & Dictionary

come down the pike

Word Rarity Rare

Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.67 in modern English

Syllables: come -down the pike
IPA

32

Scrabble Score

15

Letters

2

Syllables

12

Unique Chars

Meaning

verb

To emerge, come up; be about to happen; to approach or arrive on the scene; to present (itself or oneself).

American usage

Example Sentences

""[T]hey're the finest football leaders that ever came down the pike.""
"Alfred Stieglitz was the best photographer ever to come down the pike."
"“For me, it's a harbinger of larger cultural changes coming down the pike.”"
"“I knew it was coming on down the pike, just not at the rate it hit us,” said Sheree Renée Thomas, the editor of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, which was founded in 1949."

Etymology

From pike, short for turnpike (“toll expressway”).

Usage

American usage

Inflected Forms

comes down the pike (present, singular) coming down the pike (participle, present) came down the pike (past)

Synonyms

come down the line come down the road

Questions

What does come down the pike mean?: To emerge, come up; be about to happen; to approach or arrive on the scene; to present (itself or oneself).
Where does come down the pike come from?: From pike, short for turnpike (“toll expressway”).

How to pronounce come down the pike

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