Word.ws English Dictionary

new chum

new chum noun: a newly arrived convict.

Noun

new chum (plural new chums)

  1. (Australia, archaic) A newly arrived convict.
  2. (Australia) A beginner; a novice.
  3. (Australia, dated, derogatory, mildly) A newly arrived and inexperienced immigrant; a newcomer.
    • ‘New chum?’ queried the barman, after serving him.
      ‘I suppose I am,’ replied Jim. ‘Look here, would you mind telling me what in the devil′s name a new chum is?'
      ‘A new chum is a man fresh from home.’
      ‘From England?'
      ‘Scotland, Ireland, anywhere else, if he′s green and inexperienced. Miners from the...1906, Edward Dyson, In the Roaring Fifties, 2005, Gutenberg eBook #17045
    • Once, said he, a new chum came to the jarrah bush. A new chum is a tenderfoot, specifically an English tenderfot; he is, of course, the butt of every bush and mining camp in Australia.1915, Norman Duncan, Australian Byways, page 44
    Synonyms:
    comeling

Synonyms of new chum

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of new chum

Forms of new chum

pluralnew chums

Origin of new chum

From new + chum.

Questions about new chum

What does new chum mean?
New chum means a newly arrived convict.
What part of speech is new chum?
New chum is a noun.
What is the plural of new chum?
The plural of new chum is new chums.

Words near new chum in the dictionary

  1. New Cebu
  2. New Chester
  3. New Chichester
  4. New Christian
  5. New Christians
  6. new chum
  7. new chums
  8. New Church
  9. new circus
  10. new circuses
  11. New City

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: new chum (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-new chum.ogg.

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