Other forms: arrived, arriving, arrives
To arrive is to reach the place you were going to. Arrive at the station, arrive in London, they arrived late.
The prepositions are the difficulty and the rule is worth memorising: arrive in a town, city or country, and arrive at a building, an event or a smaller place. Arrive home, arrive here and arrive there take nothing at all. Arrive to is always wrong. Note arrive at a decision or a conclusion, which is figurative and common, and the noun arrival, which means both the act and the person: a new arrival.
1verbarriveTo reach a place you were going to.
“They arrived in Lisbon at about two in the morning.”
2verbdecisionTo reach a decision or conclusion.
“The committee arrived at a compromise nobody liked.”
3verbtimeOf a time or event, to come.
“The day arrived and nobody was ready.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
arrive is a way of reaching a place.
Latin ad ripam meant to the shore, from ripa, a riverbank. To arrive was to come to land after a voyage, which is why it does not naturally take to — you arrived at the bank, you did not arrive to it.
Latin
rīpa — shore, river-bank
la-eme
adripo — to land, come ashore
Old French
ariver
Middle English
arriven
English, today
arrive
Built from
From Middle English arriven, ariven, from Old French ariver, from la-eme adripo (“to land, come ashore”), derived from Latin rīpa (“shore, river-bank”). Displaced native oncome, tocome. For the semantic evolution, compare Old English ġelandian, ġelendan, lendan (“to arrive at land; land”) > Middle English alenden, landen (“to arrive; arrive at shore; land”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA