chum

1675–85; of uncertain origin, possibly from cham, shortening of chambermate, or from comrade. Less likely from Welsh cymrawd (“fellow”), compare brawd (“brother”).

• IPA^(key): /t͡ʃʌm/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌm

chum (plural chums)

1. (dated) A friend; a pal.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:friend

   • 1919, Donald Ferguson, chapter 13, in The Chums of Scranton High, or Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight‎, Cleveland, New York: The World Syndicate Publishing Co., page 114:

     That made Thad think of Mark Twain, and he wondered whether the illustrious Tom Sawyer and his chum, Huckleberry Finn, had ever arranged a more fetching reception committee than this one […]

   • 2016 July 7, Sarah Lyall, “British Politics Gives a Sense of Government by Old School Chums”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN:

     Looking at the backgrounds of the leading personalities in the Brexit drama, it is hard not to conclude that Britain has been led into crisis in large part by a bunch of old chums who spent the last year holed up in a political hall of mirrors, plotting with and scheming against one another.

2. (dated) A roommate, especially in a college or university.
   • 1856 February, Paul Siogvolk, “Schediasms: My College Friend, Bosworth Field”, in The Knickerbocker: Or, New-York Monthly Magazine‎, volume 47, number 2, page 161:

     Field had a 'chum,' or room-mate, whose visage was suggestive to the 'Sophs;' it invited experiment; it held out opportunity for their peculiar deviltry.

• → French: chum (Québec)
• → Spanish: chamo (Venezuela)
• Sranan Tongo: tyamu
• → Swedish: tjomme (Gothenburg dialect)
• → Norwegian: tjommi (Bergen dialect)

chum (third-person singular simple present chums, present participle chumming, simple past and past participle chummed)

1. (intransitive) To share rooms with someone; to live together.
   • 1899, Clyde Bowman Furst, A Group of Old Authors‎:

     Henry Wotton and John Donne began to be friends when, as boys, they chummed together at Oxford, where Donne had gone at the age of twelve years.

   • 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:

     A chap named Eleazir Kendrick and I had chummed in together the summer afore and built a fish-weir and shanty at Setuckit Point, down Orham way. For a spell we done pretty well.

2. (transitive) To lodge (somebody) with another person or people.
3. (intransitive) To make friends; to socialize.
   • 1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I:

     I was not surprised to see somebody sitting aft, on the deck, with his legs dangling over the mud. You see I rather chummed with the few mechanics there were in that station, whom the other pilgrims naturally despised—on account of their imperfect manners, I suppose.

   • 1902, Ernest William Hornung, The Amateur Cracksman‎:

     "You'll make yourself disliked on board!"
     "By von Heumann merely."
     "But is that wise when he's the man we've got to diddle?"
     "The wisest thing I ever did. To have chummed up with him would have been fatal -- the common dodge."

4. (transitive, Scotland, informal) To accompany.

   I'll chum you down to the shops.

Originally American English, from the 1850s. Perhaps from Powhatan.

• IPA^(key): /t͡ʃʌm/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌm

chum (uncountable)

1. (fishing, chiefly Canada, US) A mixture of (frequently rancid) fish parts and blood, dumped into the water as groundbait to attract predator fish, such as sharks.
   • 2021 March 18, Sarah Zhang, “A Gruesome Feeding Frenzy in the Atlantic Ocean”, in The Atlantic‎:

     The whale’s floating body also forms a chum slick on the surface—a trail of blood, oil, and chunks of fat and flesh that might stretch for miles across the water. […] This chum slick is what attracts sharks from afar. Seabirds are drawn to it too.

   • 2020, “The Best Methods to Go Chumming”, in Bait Binder‎, Coastal Baits, LLC, archived from the original on 27 September 2020:

     Most of us have seen the movie “Jaws”. Sheriff Brody is complaining about being the lucky one in charge of creating a chum line out of the back of the boat. The bucket is full of an awful combination of fish parts and blood. As he ladles scoop after scoop into the ocean, clearly, it was ^[sic] working…

• chum in the water
• chumsicle

chum (third-person singular simple present chums, present participle chumming, simple past and past participle chummed)

1. (fishing, transitive, intransitive) To cast chum into the water to attract fish.
   • 1983, Richard Ellis, The Book of Sharks, Knopf, →ISBN, page 176:

     He began to chum for sharks, using whale oil and chopped whale meat.

   • 1996, Frank Sargeant, The Reef Fishing Book: A Complete Anglers Guide‎:

     Small live baitfish are effective, and they will take bits of fresh cut fish when chummed strongly.

• IPA^(key): /t͡ʃʌm/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌm

chum (plural chums)

1. (pottery) A coarse mould for holding the clay while being worked on a whirler, lathe or manually.
   • 1915, The Pottery & Glass Salesman, volume 11, O'Gorman Publishing Company.:

     ...self-supporting chum within the mould normally of corresponding and almost the same but lesser contour, whereby a space is provided between the chum and mould for the introduction of the powdered material and means for expanding the chum'.

   • 1920, The South African Journal of Industries, volume 3, part 2, p. 820:

     He uses a round slab of clay, which he places on top of the chum and commences to thump down around the sides.

   • 1921, A Survey and Analysis of the Pottery Industry, bulletin no. 67, trade and industrial series no. 20, Washington: Federal Board for Vocational Training.

     Chum,—A mold used on the whirler to hold ware for scraping and finishing.

   • 1972, Neal French, Industrial Ceramics—Tableware, Oxford University Press:

     Now that shapes were more uniform this was usually done on a horizontal lathe with the bowl automatically centred on a wooden chum
     This is a more useful method: it is used in making oval casseroles. The liner is made by spreading a bat and tehn forming it over a felt-covered chum, oval in shape.
     Chum or chuck: Lathe attachment for holding pots during turning process.

From Chinook Jargon tzum (“spotted, marked”), from Chinook.

• IPA^(key): /t͡ʃʌm/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌm

chum (plural chums)

1. Synonym of chum salmon

Evenk chum

From Russian чум (čum), from Komi-Zyrian чум (ćum) and/or Udmurt чум (ćum, “tent, shelter”).[1]

• IPA^(key): /t͡ʃuːm/
• Rhymes: -uːm

chum (plural chums)

1. A temporary dwelling used by the nomadic Uralic reindeer herders of northwestern Siberia.

• much

chum

1. to sit

Borrowed from English chum.

• IPA^(key): /tʃɔm/

• (file)

chum m (plural chums, feminine blonde or chum de fille)

1. (Canada, informal, Quebec) boyfriend

   Synonyms: petit ami, ami de cœur, (dated) fiancé, conjoint

   Coordinate term: blonde

   Elle m’a présenté son nouveau chum.

   She introduced me to her new boyfriend.

   Je croyais qu’il était rien qu’un ami à Éric mais en fait c’est son chum.

   I believed that he was just another of Éric's friends, but in fact, it's his boyfriend.

2. (Canada, chiefly slang, Quebec) a friend, usually male; a chum

   Synonyms: copain, ami

   Coordinate term: chum de fille

   J’suis allé danser avec une gang de chums.

   I went to dance with a group of my male friends.

• chum de fille

Inflected form of cum.

• IPA^(key): /xuːmˠ/, /xʊmˠ/

chum

1. past indicative analytic of cum
2. Lenited form of cum.

From Old Irish dochum.

• IPA^(key): /xʊnˠ/

chum (plus genitive, triggers no mutation)

1. Obsolete spelling of chun

chum (Unified spelling)

1. (interrogative) how

·chum

1. Lenited form of ·cum.

From Pre-Palauan *qumaŋ, from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *qumaŋ, from Proto-Austronesian *qumaŋ. Cognate with Cebuano umang, Tiruray kumang, Marshallese om̧.

• IPA^(key): /ʔum/

chum

1. hermit crab

chum (+ genitive)

1. Alternative form of chun

chum

1. past indicative of cum

• (Hà Nội) IPA^(key): [t͡ɕum˧˧]
• (Huế) IPA^(key): [t͡ɕum˧˧]
• (Hồ Chí Minh City) IPA^(key): [cʊm˧˧]

(classifier cái) chum • (𡓯)

1. a kind of vase used to contain liquids or rice

• hũ
• lu
• tĩn
• vại