a)GET come by something to manage to get something that is rare or difficult to get 弄到某物,获得某物〔指稀有或不容易得到的东西〕
How did you come by these pictures?
这些画你是怎么弄到手的?
Jobs were hard to come by.
工作难找啊。
b)come by (something)VISIT to make a short visit to a place on your way to somewhere else 顺路到访(某地)
He said he’d come by later.
他说晚些时候他会来的。
I’ll come by the house and get my stuff later, OK?
我回头再到那房子拿我的东西,好吗?
Examples from the Corpus
hard to come by• If you are so sure, a proof shouldn't be hard to come by.• Mainstreampublisherscomplain that good circulationdatabases of black names are hard to come by.• New jobs often require experience which is hard to come by.• Voluntaryassistance in preparing and auditingaccounts could become hard to come by.• Peace is hard to come by and takes years to find, if it ever is.• Still, even in Biarritz asps are presumably hard to come by and the audience was in no mood to be critical.• If outrightdesire was hard to come by at City, we had our escapes.• They could have been even shorter, exceptencouraging signs have been so hard to come by for the Warriors this preseason.• Jobs were hard to come by then.