What does comes in handy mean

First, in a "Weekly Journal of Gardening" column of The Gardener and Practical Florist : CELERY, as we always recommend in small gardens, should be planted out at various seasons, and if there be any left in the seed bed, another row will come in handy.

An October The London Magazine prints a letter from summer please your oner, hoping your oner wont be displeasd at my boldness and I send a little basket of eggs-good fresh eggs-and they were lade by the little black hen that's three yeer ould come Michaelmas eve the day that I send home your oner's shute— and the times are very hard intirely — intirely — plase your oner from your oner's sarvent to comand, Timotheus Kinnealy.

Improve this answer. Hugo Hugo I believe the definition "readily accessible" is different from the definition being used here, which is essentially "useful". If I say, "A shotgun is handy for dealing with burglars" I mean "useful".

They're not particularly related. I could say that a tool is "handy" for a certain job, even if it locked in a toolbox in the corner of my basement at the moment. And I could say, "I have a snow globe handy", meaning sitting right there on the table, even though it's not clear what it might be good for. Here is the Ngram graph of its usage: This led me to an usage of the expression:. Community Bot 1. Daniel Daniel Unfortunately The Botanico-Medical Recorder is a mismetadating, scroll back to page and you'll see it's from but the 4 looks like a 1.

The earliest I found is I wonder why there is such a dip in usage of the phrase in the post-war era? Dan Dan 21 1 1 bronze badge. Sources for your content might be useful. A link to your paper if available will be interesting. Unlike the other answers, I'd suggest that this idiom is a composite. Steve Steve 1, 4 4 silver badges 8 8 bronze badges. Useful, helpful, convenient. This then takes us to to come in as a phrasal verb: To prove to have a specified positive quality.

With adverb or prepositional phrase, as usefully, well, etc. Greybeard Greybeard Early use of the phrase seems to indicate such an intention on the part of the authors, as well. Kris Kris Sign up or log in Sign up using Google. Sign up using Facebook. Sign up using Email and Password. Post as a guest Name. Email Required, but never shown. Word in Definition. Princeton's WordNet 0. Wiktionary 0.

Matched Categories Be. How to pronounce come in handy? Alex US English. David US English. Mark US English. Daniel British. Libby British. Mia British. Karen Australian. Hayley Australian. Natasha Australian. Veena Indian. Priya Indian. Neerja Indian. Zira US English. We could talk until we're blue in the face about this quiz on words for the color "blue," but we think you should take the quiz and find out if you're a whiz at these colorful terms.

Words nearby come in handy come-hither , come home to roost , come in , come in for , come in from the cold , come in handy , come in out of the rain, know enough to , come into , comeliness , Come live with me and be my love , comely.

How to use come in handy in a sentence Meanwhile, in Florida, Bush was flooded with questions about whether gay marriage could possibly come to the Sunshine State. How Skinny Is Too Skinny? Martin's Summer Rafael Sabatini. Confidence Henry James.

Davy and The Goblin Charles E.