phrasal verb · neutral
come at
/kʌm æt/come·AT
to approach or direct attention to something (e.g. a problem); also to attack someone
Examples
“You can't come at the question only from an economic perspective.”
“The dog came at him when he opened the gate.”
“How do you come at that conclusion from the data?”
Band 8 sentence
“If we come at the education problem solely from a test‑score perspective, we risk overlooking students' creativity and wellbeing.”
Collocations
- come at a problem
- come at someone
Word family
Common mistakes
come to the problem→come at the problem / approach the problem
come at somebody (meaning meet)→meet someone / come over to someone's place
Say it for a higher band
5look at→6approach→7+come at
Synonyms
approach
Easily confused
approach
“We need to approach the climate issue from both scientific and social angles.”
Related words
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