chum up

Definitions

1. 1

   To be friendly toward (with or to) someone, especially in an ingratiating way

   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.
   • 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.
   • 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.
2. 2

   To initiate (a new prisoner) through a ritual involving beating him with sticks and…

   To initiate (a new prisoner) through a ritual involving beating him with sticks and swords, accompanied by music, to extort money from him.

   • 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, Mr. Miller. They are not very nice whom they chum up? Boot. Not very; they would as soon chum you up as anybody else.
3. 3

   To apply chum to water as bait.

4. ›+ 1 more definitionshow fewer

   1. 4

      To render a situation frenzied and confusing.

The neighborhood