chum up
English
Pronunciation
Audio (AU): (file)
Verb
chum up (third-person singular simple present chums up, present participle chumming up, simple past and past participle chummed up)
- (idiomatic, informal) To be friendly toward (with or to) someone, especially in an ingratiating way; to form a friendship (with).
- I chummed up with a few of my new work colleagues.
- 1876, “Mr. Greville Hodson the Poultry Judge at Home,” Journal of Horticulture and Cottage Gardener, Volume 30, 16 March, 1876, p. 221,[2]
- Having met Mr. Hodson many years at various shows, and “chummed up,” as naturally we should have, he invited me to go and see him at his home in Somersetshire.
- 1919, Frank L. Packard, From Now On, Toronto: Copp Clark, Book 3, Chapter 3, p. 163,[3]
- He said he met a stranger in a saloon last night, and that they chummed up together, and started in to make a night of it.
- 1922, Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt, New York: Harcourt Brace, Chapter 26, p. 309,[4]
- “ […] which would you rather do: be in with a lot of greasy mechanics and laboring-men, or chum up to a real fellow like Lord Wycombe, and get invited to his house for parties?”
- 2004, Andrea Levy, Small Island, London: Review, Chapter 42, p. 396,[5]
- ‘Were you in your basha just before you went on guard duty?’
- ‘Yes, sir.’
- ‘With other chaps. Men you’d chummed up with?’
- ‘Yes, sir.’
- (obsolete, UK, prison slang, transitive) To initiate (a new prisoner) through a ritual involving beating him with sticks and swords, accompanied by music, to extort money from him.[1]
- 1844, The Spectator, Volume 17, No. 811, 13 January, 1844, p. 28,[6]
- They have a practice of “chumming up” a new fellow-prisoner—beating him with old swords and staves kept in the prison for the purpose, to exact a fee of a half-crown.
- 1849, John Brand, Popular Antiquities of Great Britain, revised by Henry Ellis, London: Henry G. Bohn, Volume 2, p. 452,[7]
- Mr. Miller. They are not very nice whom they chum up?
- Boot. Not very; they would as soon chum you up as anybody else.
- 1844, The Spectator, Volume 17, No. 811, 13 January, 1844, p. 28,[6]
Synonyms
Translations
be friendly toward someone
|
References
Categories:
- English terms with audio links
- English lemmas
- English verbs
- English phrasal verbs
- English phrasal verbs formed with "up"
- English multiword terms
- English idioms
- English informal terms
- English terms with obsolete senses
- British English
- English prison slang
- English transitive verbs
- English phrasal verbs with particle (up)
- en:Prison