"chum up" meaning in English

See chum up in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: en-au-chum up.ogg [Australia] Forms: chums up [present, singular, third-person], chumming up [participle, present], chummed up [participle, past], chummed up [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} chum up (third-person singular simple present chums up, present participle chumming up, simple past and past participle chummed up)
  1. (idiomatic, informal) To be friendly toward (with or to) someone, especially in an ingratiating way; to form a friendship (with). Tags: idiomatic, informal Translations (be friendly toward someone): 套近乎 (tàojìnhu) (Chinese Mandarin), kaveerata (Finnish), kumplować się [imperfective] (Polish)
    Sense id: en-chum_up-en-verb-~TrU2sMx Categories (other): English phrasal verbs formed with "up", Terms with Finnish translations, Terms with Polish translations Disambiguation of English phrasal verbs formed with "up": 11 40 9 40 Disambiguation of Terms with Finnish translations: 10 37 11 41 Disambiguation of Terms with Polish translations: 13 36 14 38 Disambiguation of 'be friendly toward someone': 98 1 1 1
  2. (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. Tags: UK, obsolete, slang, transitive
    Sense id: en-chum_up-en-verb-MEqfIcrh Categories (other): British English, English entries with incorrect language header, English phrasal verbs formed with "up", Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries, Terms with Finnish translations, Terms with Mandarin translations, Terms with Polish translations, Prison Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 6 42 7 45 Disambiguation of English phrasal verbs formed with "up": 11 40 9 40 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 8 43 7 42 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 6 45 5 44 Disambiguation of Terms with Finnish translations: 10 37 11 41 Disambiguation of Terms with Mandarin translations: 8 41 9 42 Disambiguation of Terms with Polish translations: 13 36 14 38 Disambiguation of Prison: 0 100 0 0
  3. To apply chum to water as bait. Synonyms: make friends
    Sense id: en-chum_up-en-verb-h9WvSA7i Categories (other): Terms with Finnish translations, Terms with Polish translations Disambiguation of Terms with Finnish translations: 10 37 11 41 Disambiguation of Terms with Polish translations: 13 36 14 38
  4. (by extension) To render a situation frenzied and confusing. Tags: broadly
    Sense id: en-chum_up-en-verb-MN8ARnkH Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English phrasal verbs formed with "up", Entries with translation boxes, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries, Terms with Finnish translations, Terms with Mandarin translations, Terms with Polish translations Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 6 42 7 45 Disambiguation of English phrasal verbs formed with "up": 11 40 9 40 Disambiguation of Entries with translation boxes: 10 29 9 52 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 8 43 7 42 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 6 45 5 44 Disambiguation of Terms with Finnish translations: 10 37 11 41 Disambiguation of Terms with Mandarin translations: 8 41 9 42 Disambiguation of Terms with Polish translations: 13 36 14 38

Inflected forms

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "chums up",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "chumming up",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "chummed up",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
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    },
    {
      "form": "chummed up",
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
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          "_dis": "10 37 11 41",
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          "text": "I chummed up with a few of my new work colleagues.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
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              56,
              66
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          ],
          "ref": "1876 March 16, “Mr. Greville Hodson the Poultry Judge at Home”, in Journal of Horticulture and Cottage Gardener, volume 30, page 221:",
          "text": "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.",
          "type": "quotation"
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          "ref": "1919, Frank L. Packard, From Now On, Toronto: Copp Clark, Book 3, Chapter 3, p. 163:",
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          "type": "quotation"
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          "ref": "1922, Sinclair Lewis, chapter XXVI, in Babbitt, New York, N.Y.: Harcourt, Brace and Company, →OCLC, page 309:",
          "text": "“[…] 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?”",
          "type": "quotation"
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          "ref": "2004, Andrea Levy, chapter 42, in Small Island, London: Review, page 396:",
          "text": "‘Were you in your basha just before you went on guard duty?’\n‘Yes, sir.’\n‘With other chaps. Men you’d chummed up with?’\n‘Yes, sir.’",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To be friendly toward (with or to) someone, especially in an ingratiating way; to form a friendship (with)."
      ],
      "id": "en-chum_up-en-verb-~TrU2sMx",
      "links": [
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          "friendly",
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          "ingratiating",
          "ingratiating"
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        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, informal) To be friendly toward (with or to) someone, especially in an ingratiating way; to form a friendship (with)."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "informal"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "_dis1": "98 1 1 1",
          "code": "cmn",
          "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
          "lang_code": "cmn",
          "roman": "tàojìnhu",
          "sense": "be friendly toward someone",
          "word": "套近乎"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "98 1 1 1",
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "lang_code": "fi",
          "sense": "be friendly toward someone",
          "word": "kaveerata"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "98 1 1 1",
          "code": "pl",
          "lang": "Polish",
          "lang_code": "pl",
          "sense": "be friendly toward someone",
          "tags": [
            "imperfective"
          ],
          "word": "kumplować się"
        }
      ]
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          "_dis": "0 100 0 0",
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          "name": "Prison",
          "orig": "en:Prison",
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          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "text": "1849, John Brand, Popular Antiquities of Great Britain, revised by Henry Ellis, London: Henry G. Bohn, Volume 2, p. 452,\nMr. Miller. They are not very nice whom they chum up?\nBoot. Not very; they would as soon chum you up as anybody else."
        }
      ],
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        "To initiate (a new prisoner) through a ritual involving beating him with sticks and swords, accompanied by music, to extort money from him."
      ],
      "id": "en-chum_up-en-verb-MEqfIcrh",
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          "prisoner"
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        [
          "extort",
          "extort"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(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."
      ],
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        "UK",
        "obsolete",
        "slang",
        "transitive"
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      "glosses": [
        "To apply chum to water as bait."
      ],
      "id": "en-chum_up-en-verb-h9WvSA7i",
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          "chum",
          "chum"
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          "_dis1": "0 0 100 0",
          "word": "make friends"
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      "glosses": [
        "To render a situation frenzied and confusing."
      ],
      "id": "en-chum_up-en-verb-MN8ARnkH",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(by extension) To render a situation frenzied and confusing."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "broadly"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-chum up.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/c/ca/En-au-chum_up.ogg/En-au-chum_up.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ca/En-au-chum_up.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
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  "word": "chum up"
}
{
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    "English lemmas",
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    "English phrasal verbs",
    "English phrasal verbs formed with \"up\"",
    "English verbs",
    "Entries with translation boxes",
    "Pages with 1 entry",
    "Pages with entries",
    "Terms with Finnish translations",
    "Terms with Mandarin translations",
    "Terms with Polish translations",
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    {
      "form": "chums up",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
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    },
    {
      "form": "chumming up",
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    {
      "form": "chummed up",
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      "form": "chummed up",
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  "senses": [
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        "English terms with quotations",
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        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
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        "To be friendly toward (with or to) someone, especially in an ingratiating way; to form a friendship (with)."
      ],
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          "friendly",
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        [
          "ingratiating",
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        "(idiomatic, informal) To be friendly toward (with or to) someone, especially in an ingratiating way; to form a friendship (with)."
      ],
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        "idiomatic",
        "informal"
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        {
          "text": "1849, John Brand, Popular Antiquities of Great Britain, revised by Henry Ellis, London: Henry G. Bohn, Volume 2, p. 452,\nMr. Miller. They are not very nice whom they chum up?\nBoot. Not very; they would as soon chum you up as anybody else."
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      "glosses": [
        "To initiate (a new prisoner) through a ritual involving beating him with sticks and swords, accompanied by music, to extort money from him."
      ],
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          "prison",
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        [
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        [
          "extort",
          "extort"
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        "(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."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "UK",
        "obsolete",
        "slang",
        "transitive"
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    {
      "glosses": [
        "To apply chum to water as bait."
      ],
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          "chum",
          "chum"
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          "bait",
          "bait"
        ]
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    {
      "glosses": [
        "To render a situation frenzied and confusing."
      ],
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        "(by extension) To render a situation frenzied and confusing."
      ],
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        "broadly"
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      "tags": [
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    {
      "word": "make friends"
    }
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  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "lang_code": "cmn",
      "roman": "tàojìnhu",
      "sense": "be friendly toward someone",
      "word": "套近乎"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "lang_code": "fi",
      "sense": "be friendly toward someone",
      "word": "kaveerata"
    },
    {
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "lang_code": "pl",
      "sense": "be friendly toward someone",
      "tags": [
        "imperfective"
      ],
      "word": "kumplować się"
    }
  ],
  "word": "chum up"
}

Download raw JSONL data for chum up meaning in English (5.1kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-09-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-09-02 using wiktextract (ccec6f1 and 4deed51). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.