how come

English

Etymology

US English, 1848,[1] probably from older forms such as “How comes it that... ?” or “How does it come that... ?” and “How did it come to be like this?”[2]

Compare West Frisian hoe kom (“how come”), Dutch hoe komt het (“how come it; why”), Afrikaans hoekom (“how come; why”).

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /haʊ kʌm/
Audio (US) (file)
Audio (AU) (file)

Adverb

how come

(idiomatic, informal) Why; why is it; for what reason or purpose; due to what cause?
Synonym: why come
How come you didn’t leave when you had the chance?

Usage notes

“How come” differs from “why” in that the word order of the question is the same as that of a statement.Compare:

You didn’t leave. (statement)

How come you didn’t leave?

Why didn’t you leave?

Synonyms

how's come

Translations

why

Afrikaans: hoekom
Bulgarian: защо (bg) (zašto), как така (kak taka)
Catalan: please add this translation if you can
Chinese:
Mandarin: 為什麼／为什么 (zh) (wèishénme)
Czech: proč (cs), jak to, že (cs), jak to přijde, že
Dutch: hoe komt het dat, waarom (nl)
Esperanto: kial (eo)
Finnish: miksi (fi), minkä takia
French: comment se fait-il que (formal), comment se fait-ce que (formal), comment ça se fait que (colloquial), pourquoi (fr)
Georgian: როგორ მოხდა (rogor moxda)
German: wie kommt es dass, warum (de)
Hungarian: hogyhogy
Italian: come mai
Japanese: 何で (nande)
Korean: 왜 (ko) (wae)
Persian: چرا‎ (fa) (čerâ)
Polish: dlaczego (pl), jakże (pl), czemu (pl)
Portuguese: por quê (pt), como (pt)
Russian: почему́ же (ru) (počemú že), почему́ (ru) (počemú), почему́ э́то (počemú éto), как так (kak tak), как это так (kak eto tak)
Spanish: cómo es que, ¿por qué? (es)
Swedish: hur kommer det sig (sv), varför (sv)
Tagalog: bakit (tl)
Vietnamese: tại sao (vi), tai sao

References

Eric Partridge (2005), “how come?”, in Tom Dalzell and Terry Victor, editors, The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, volume 1 (A–I), London; New York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN, page 1044.
Hegedűs, Irén; Fodor, Alexandra (2010): English Historical Linguistics 2010: Selected Papers from the Sixteenth International Conference on English Historical Linguistics, p. 179.

[1] Eric Partridge (2005), “how come?”, in Tom Dalzell and Terry Victor, editors, The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, volume 1 (A–I), London; New York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN, page 1044.

[2] Hegedűs, Irén; Fodor, Alexandra (2010): English Historical Linguistics 2010: Selected Papers from the Sixteenth International Conference on English Historical Linguistics, p. 179.