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🧑‍🤝‍🧑 A close friend 🪱 Fish bait 🐟 A Pacific salmon 🪱 To throw bait 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 To spend time
to chum

to chum

5.8
To spend time with someone as a friend
  • verb
  • /tʃʌm/
  • UK
translation icon : hacerse amigo de
  • She loves to chum with her friends at the park every weekend.

Examples

  • They spent the afternoon chumming together, sharing stories and laughing at old memories.

  • If you want to get to know someone, just chum with them over coffee.

  • Come on down and chum some of this shit.

    Jaws (1975)

  • "Please, don't expect me to understand why a sharp boy like yourself would chum up with some fat old Jew!"

    Fiction book (2002)

  • If I were going to chum around with a celebrity chef, it would have to be Nigella Lawson, not that stuffy Mario Batali.

    Blog text (24)

  • He chums around with Steely, the guitar player, the twenty-year-old who ran away from home and who, for some reason, chose Bones as his mentor and friend.

    Fiction book (1992)

Synonyms

to get along
vsto chum
  • US
529 1.9

Have a friendly relationship with someone

focuses more on spending time together or active sociability than on simple harmony
to befriend
vsto chum
61 3.0

To become close to someone by helping them

is mainly about spending time together and general friendliness rather than offering support
to pal
vsto chum
  • Informal
37 5.3

To become friends with someone and spend time together

focuses more on spending time together as friends than on starting friendship
to chum up
vsto chum
  • UK
1 7.7

To make friends with someone by talking and being kind

emphasizes spending time together as friends rather than just becoming friendly
to pal up
vsto chum
  • Informal
8.0

Become friends with someone and spend time with them

is about spending time together and general friendliness rather than just starting it

Antonyms

to avoid
∞ 1.0

To stay away from something or not do it to stop something bad from happening

to ignore
∞ 1.0

Choose not to pay attention to someone or something

Idioms

chum in the water
  • Informal
9.8

Exposed and easy for others to attack or criticize

Phrasal Verbs

to chum up
  • UK
1 7.7

To make friends with someone by talking and being kind

Compounds

bum chum
  • UK
1 9.9

A close friend you do many things with

chum salmon
  • Specialized
1 6.3

A large Pacific fish with small spots on its back that people eat

How Friendly

to bond
149 2.9
to chum
  • UK
5.8
to hang out
  • Informal
946 2.4
to socialize
  • US
68 2.8
to meet up
  • Informal
122 1.8

Surface Forms

chum infinitive
chummed past
chummed past participle
chumming present participle
chums third person singular

Etymology

Chum. The verb to chum (to spend time together) comes from the noun chum meaning friend, so to chum around is to act like friends and 'spend time together'.