Chum Meaning
/t͡ʃʌm/Definition, CEFR level B1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
nounA friend; a pal.
nounA roommate, especially in a college or university.
Sentence Examples
To attract sharks, scientists prepare a special bloody bait concoction known as "chum".
Calling someone a chum simply shows your overestimation of your place in the social hierarchy.
He spent the afternoon fishing with his childhood chum at the lake.
CEFR Practice Quiz
My old ____ and I often go fishing together on weekends.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
He is an old school ____ of mine whom I haven't seen for many city years.
Word Origin & History
1675–85; of uncertain origin, possibly from cham, shortening of chambermate, or from comrade. Less likely from Welsh cymrawd (“fellow”), compare brawd (“brother”).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"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:
"Looking at the backgrounds of the leading personalities in the Brexit drama, it is hard not to conclude that Britain has been led into crisis in large part by a bunch of old chums who spent the last year holed up in a political hall of mirrors, plotting with and scheming against one another."
— 2016 July 7, Sarah Lyall, “British Politics Gives a Sense of Government by Old School Chums”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
"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:
"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:
Explore More B1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
My old ____ and I often go fishing together on weekends.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
He is an old school ____ of mine whom I haven't seen for many city years.