chum

Noun (1)

chum (plural chums)

1. (dated) A friend; a pal.
   • He looked down upon the girl beside him—a daughter of the desert walking across the face of a dead world with a son of the jungle. He smiled at the thought. He wished that he had had a sister, and that she had been like this girl. What a bully chum she would have been!1913 June–December, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “Through the Valley of the Shadow”, in The Return of Tarzan, New York, N.Y.: A[lbert] L[evi] Burt Company, […], published March 1915, →OCLC, page 137
   • 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[…]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

   Synonyms:

   babber, billy, bredrin, bruv, bud, buddo, buddy, butty, chaver, china

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

Verb (1)

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.
   • 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.1899, Clyde Bowman Furst, A Group of Old Authors
   • 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.1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC
2. (transitive) To lodge (somebody) with another person or people.
3. (intransitive) To make friends; to socialize.
   • 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.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
   • "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."1902, Ernest William Hornung, The Amateur Cracksman

   Synonyms:

   chum up

4. (Scotland, informal, transitive) To accompany.
   • I'll chum you down to the shops.

Noun (2)

chum (uncountable)

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

   Synonyms:

   berley, burley, shark bait

Verb (2)

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

1. (ambitransitive) To cast chum into the water to attract fish.
   • He began to chum for sharks, using whale oil and chopped whale meat.1983, Richard Ellis, The Book of Sharks, Knopf, →ISBN, page 176
   • Small live baitfish are effective, and they will take bits of fresh cut fish when chummed strongly.1996, Frank Sargeant, The Reef Fishing Book: A Complete Anglers Guide

Noun (3)

chum (plural chums)

1. (pottery) A coarse mould for holding the clay while being worked on a whirler, lathe or manually.
   • ...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'.1915, The Pottery & Glass Salesman, volume 11, O'Gorman Publishing Company.
   • He uses a round slab of clay, which he places on top of the chum and commences to thump down around the sides.1920, The South African Journal of Industries, volume 3, part 2, p. 820

Noun (4)

chum (plural chums)

1. Synonym of chum salmon.

   Synonyms:

   chum salmon

Noun (5)

IPA/t͡ʃuːm/

chum (plural chums)

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

Proper noun capitalized: Chum

Chum (plural Chums)

1. A surname.