Word.ws English Dictionary

chumbox

chumbox noun: a grid of clickbait advertisements on a webpage.

Noun

chumbox (plural chumboxes)

  1. (Internet, derogatory) A grid of clickbait advertisements on a webpage.
    • ctrl+f "chumbox" http://www.theverge.com/2014/4/22/5639892/how-weaponized-clickbait-took-over-the-web zero results :(2014 April 22, Alene Vincent, “Alene Vincent on Twitter”, in Twitter, archived from the original on 26 May 2017
    • This is a chumbox. It is a variation on the banner ad which takes the form of a grid of advertisements that sits at the bottom of a web page underneath the main content. It can be found on the sites of many leading publishers, including nymag.com, dailymail.co.uk, usatoday.com, and theawl.com...2015 June 4, John Mahoney, “A Complete Taxonomy of Internet Chum”, in The Awl, archived from the original on 26 May 2017

Examples of chumbox in a sentence

  • It’s called the “chumbox,”—click bait junk advertising that doesn’t deliver.2016 October 12, John Stonestreet, “Beware the Chumbox”, in Break Point, archived from the original on 26 May 2017:
  • But to some news publishers, already fending off fake-news accusations and struggling to retain readers, chumbox ads have turned from annoying to toxic.2019 October 4, Tiffany Hsu, “You Will Be Shocked by This Article”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 25 Mar 2020:

Forms of chumbox

pluralchumboxes

Origin of chumbox

From chum + box, suggesting the chumbuckets used in fishing, full of rancid bait.

Questions about chumbox

What does chumbox mean?
Chumbox means a grid of clickbait advertisements on a webpage.
How do you use chumbox in a sentence?
It’s called the “chumbox,”—click bait junk advertising that doesn’t deliver.
What part of speech is chumbox?
Chumbox is a noun.
What is the plural of chumbox?
The plural of chumbox is chumboxes.

Words near chumbox in the dictionary

  1. chumbled
  2. chumbles
  3. Chumbley
  4. Chumbleys
  5. chumbling
  6. chumbox
  7. chumboxes
  8. chumbucket
  9. chumbuckets
  10. Chumley
  11. Chumleys

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: chumbox (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “chumbox.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/chumbox. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.