Dictionary

to-come en · NOUN

Etymology

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

Meanings

1. (rare, uncountable) Something which is to come.
   • Of a discourse to come – on the to-come and repetition. 2013, Maria-Daniella Dick, Derrida Wordbook, page 416:
   • 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:
2. (rare, uncountable) The future.
   • (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:
   • 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:
   • 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:
   • 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:
   • You are the future, the to-come, of the world. I congratulate you, boys and girls, that you live in this generation. 1893, Annual Report of the School Committee of the City of Boston, page 464:
   • With leave to clench the past, chain the to-come, Put out an arm and touch and take the sun […] 1899, Robert Browning, The Complete Works of Robert Browning, published 1912, page 476:
   • The Past / Now stands before thee like an Incarnation / Of the To-come; 1822, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Hellas, page 49:

Forms

Synonyms

to-be (the future)