student asking question

What's "come about" mean?

teacher

Native speaker’s answer

Rebecca

"Come about" is an informal expression that means "to take place/happen" or "to begin/exist." Thus, we can understand "how did that word come about" to be asking about the origins of the word "[sleep] tight", so the speaker is asking "how did this word happen/exist?" Ex: How did the car accident come about? (come about = take place, happen) Ex: The election win did not come about through legitimate means. (come about = happen, occur)

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