chum
1a close or intimate companion: boyhood chums.
Older Use. a roommate, as at college.
to associate closely.
Older Use. to share a room or rooms with another, especially in a dormitory at a college or prep school.
Origin of chum
1Other definitions for chum (2 of 3)
cut or ground bait dumped into the water to attract fish to the area where one is fishing.
fish refuse or scraps discarded by a cannery.
to fish by attracting fish by dumping cut or ground bait into the water.
to dump chum into (a body of water) so as to attract fish.
to lure (fish) with chum: They chummed the fish with hamburger.
Origin of chum
2Other definitions for chum (3 of 3)
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use chum in a sentence
In the innermost, Atock, our locomotive engineer, and I chummed together.
Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland | Joseph TatlowRuth and Helen found the rooms they were to occupy rather different from those they had chummed in at Briarwood.
Ruth Fielding At College | Alice B. EmersonPenelope chummed with the two boys impartially as far as Dennis or Jim's mother could perceive.
Still Jim | Honor Willsie MorrowTo this profession also Simpson belonged, on whom Mr. Pickwick was ‘chummed’ in the Fleet prison.
Charles Dickens and Music | James T. LightwoodI haven't chummed in with the degenerate aristocracy much in my time, but somewhere or other I've seen that chap before.
Cape Cod Stories | Joseph C. Lincoln
British Dictionary definitions for chum (1 of 3)
/ (tʃʌm) /
informal a close friend
(intr usually foll by up with) to be or become an intimate friend (of)
(tr) Scot to accompany: I'll chum you home
Origin of chum
1British Dictionary definitions for chum (2 of 3)
/ (tʃʌm) /
angling, mainly US and Canadian chopped fish, meal, etc, used as groundbait
Origin of chum
2British Dictionary definitions for chum (3 of 3)
/ (tʃʊm) /
a Pacific salmon, Oncorhynchus keta
Origin of chum
3Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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