bum chum
1
9.9
- noun
- /bʌm tʃʌm/
- UK
:
amigo íntimo
- No one knows me better than my bum chum; we share everything.
Examples
-
I always enjoy spending time with my best bum chum on the weekends.
-
Found a new bum chum, have we?
-
I know this is the house of your little bum chum.
-
Lost your bum chum?
-
He said, "I'd like me and all my bum chums "to go and live on a big island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean "where we can live free and happy and no-one to bother us."
-
He says, "And t'poof, he wants to go and live on an island "in t'middle of t'Pacific and bum himself to oblivion with all his bum chums."
-
After many adventures together, he truly became my bum chum.
Synonyms
∞
1.0
A close friend you spend time with
131
8.6
A close friend often from the same neighborhood or background
62
6.4
A close friend you spend a lot of time with
22
9.5
Close family members or friends you care about
8
9.1
A friendly name for a close friend
7
9.9
A friendly name people use to talk to a close friend
1
9.9
A close friend like a brother
A name someone uses to show love for a partner or close friend
Antonyms
How Close
Surface Forms
Morphology
bum + chum
Although 'chum' clearly means a friend, the element 'bum' has several unrelated senses (e.g. buttocks, a vagrant, or a jocular intensifier) and does not transparently signal closeness. The compound is a playful, regionally marked idiom meaning 'very close friend' and this specific sense cannot be reliably derived from the parts by a B1 learner who has only seen the constituent words.
Etymology
The informal phrase bum chum may come from the picture of a friend who is always right behind you: bum means the back or bottom and chum means friend. That's why it came to mean 'a very close friend'.