1890. Rudyard Kipling, Plain Tales (3rd ed.), p. 264. Oh! where
would I be when my froat was dry? Oh! where would I be when the
bullets fly? Oh! where would I be when I came to die? Why,
Somewheres anigh my chum.
Verb, trs. and intrs. (colloquial).—To occupy a joint lodging, or share
expenses; to be on the closest terms of intimacy with another; to be
‘thick as thieves’; or ‘thick as hops.’ French slang has être dans la
chemise de quelqu’un; also être du dernier bien avec quelqu’un.
1730. Wesley, wks. (1872) XII., 20. There are ... some honest
fellows in College, who would be willing to chum in one of them.
[m.]
1762. Churchill, The Ghost, bk. II. Old Maids and Rakes are join’d
together. Coquettes and Prudes, like April weather, Wits forc’d to
chum with Common Sense.
1836. C. Dickens, Pickwick Papers, p. 339 (ed. 1857). ‘Why I don’t
rightly know about to night,’ replied the stout turnkey. ‘You’ll be
chummed on somebody to-morrow, and then you’ll be all snug and
comfortable.’
1864. Temple Bar, Nov., p. 587. We choose our own carriages, and
either leave our fellow trippers altogether, or, making a
selection, chum in parties of three or four.
1871. Mortimer Collins, Mrq. and Merch., II., v., 143. She ...
found herself chummed upon a young person who turned out to be ...
a ... slattern. [m.]
1877. Besant and Rice, With Harp and Crown, ch. xii. Here are City
clerks, who, by chumming together, are able to afford one festive
evening in the week at the Oxford.
New Chum, subs. (Australian).—A new arrival in the colony; a
‘greenhorn’; or ‘tenderfoot.’ For general synonyms, see Snooker.
1861. Earles, Ups and Downs of Australian Life, p. 199. ‘I suppose
you’re a stranger, or as we calls ’em, a new chum, ain’t you?’
1886. E. Wakefield, Nineteenth Century, Aug., p. 173. In these
colonies [Australia], where pretty nearly every one has made
several sea voyages, that subject is strictly tabooed in all
rational society. To dilate upon it is to betray a new chum.
1889. Town and Country, 16 Feb. ‘Answers to Correspondents.’ New
Chum (Forbes):—The first instalment will be due, etc.
Chummage, subs. (old).—Money procured by the practice of chumming
together; but various extensions of meaning appear to have been in
vogue at different periods.—See quots. [The practice alluded to in
quot. 1777, was the rough music made with pokers, tongs, sticks, and
saucepans, for which ovation the initiated prisoner had to pay or ‘fork
out’ a certain sum of money, or submit to being deprived of its
equivalent from among his personal effects; otherwise called chumming
up.]
1777. Howard, State of Prisons in England and Wales, quoted in J.
Ashton’s The Fleet, p. 295. A cruel custom obtains in most of our
Gaols, which is that of the prisoners demanding of a new comer
Garnish, Footing, or (as it is called in some London Gaols)
chummage.
1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue. Chummage: money paid by the richer
sort of prisoners in the Fleet and King’s Bench to the poorer for
their share of a room.... A prisoner who can pay for being alone,
chooses two poor chums, who for a stipulated price, called
chummage, give up their share of the room.
1836. Dickens, Pickwick, xlii. The regular chummage is
two-and-sixpence.
1859. G. A. Sala, Twice Round the Clock (1861), 103. The
time-honoured system of chummage, or quartering two or more
collegians in one room, and allowing the richest to pay his
companions a stipulated sum to go out and find quarters elsewhere.
Also used as an adjective.
1836. Dickens, Pickwick, ch. xlii., p. 364. You’ll have a chummage
ticket upon twenty-seven in the third, and them as is in the room
will be your chums.
Chummery, subs. (common).—Chumhood; also the quarters occupied by
‘chums.’ [From Chum + ery; cf., Rookery, snuggery, &c.].
1877. Besant and Rice, Son of Vulcan, p. 196. Jack and her father
lived in bachelor Chummery.
Chummy, subs. (colloquial).—1. A chimney-sweep’s climbing boy. [A
corruption of ‘chimney’ through ‘chumley.’]
1835. Dickens, Sketches by Boz, p. 169. Vereas he ’ad been a
chummy—he begged the cheerman’s parding for using such a vulgar
hexpression, etc.
1844. Thackeray, Greenwich, wks. (1886) XXIII., 380. The hall ...
was decorated with banners and escutcheons of deceased chummies.
[m.]
1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lond. Poor, vol. II., p. 417. A
chummy (once a common name for the climbing-boy, being a corruption
of chimney).
1859. W. Gregory, Egypt, I.; 154. His shrill voice, high up aloft,
like a chummy’s on a London summer morn. [m.]