chum up

Verb

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

1. (idiomatic, informal) To be friendly toward (with or to) someone, especially in an ingratiating way; to form a friendship (with).
   • I chummed up with a few of my new work colleagues.
   • Having met Mr. Hodson many years at various shows, and “chummed up,” as naturally we should have, he invited me to go and see him at his home in Somersetshire.1876 March 16, “Mr. Greville Hodson the Poultry Judge at Home”, in Journal of Horticulture and Cottage Gardener, volume 30, page 221
2. (UK, obsolete, slang, transitive) To initiate (a new prisoner) through a ritual involving beating him with sticks and swords, accompanied by music, to extort money from him.
   • They have a practice of “chumming up” a new fellow-prisoner—beating him with old swords and staves kept in the prison for the purpose, to exact a fee of a half-crown.1844 January 13, The Spectator, volume 17, number 811, page 28
   • Mr. Miller. They are not very nice whom they chum up?
     Boot. Not very; they would as soon chum you up as anybody else.1849, John Brand, Popular Antiquities of Great Britain, revised by Henry Ellis, London: Henry G. Bohn, Volume 2, p. 452
3. To apply chum to water as bait.

   Synonyms:

   make friends

4. (broadly) To render a situation frenzied and confusing.