Meaning & use
chum up
Last updated
Meaning
verbintransitiveinformalBritish
to become friendly with someone, or to make friends with someone
Grammar: No object; usually followed by 'with' + person: chum up with a new colleague.
Patterns
- chum up with someone
He chummed up with a couple of guys from the football team.
She quickly chummed up with the other students in her class.
It's easy to chum up with people at this café because everyone is so friendly.
Word forms
| third person singular | chums up |
|---|---|
| past tense | chummed up |
| past participle | chummed up |
| -ing form | chumming up |
Common combinations
- chum up with someone
- He chummed up with the new boy at school.
- chum up to someone
- She tried to chum up to the boss to get a promotion.
- quickly chum up
- Children quickly chum up with each other on the first day.
Synonyms and how they differ
- befriend
- More formal and often used for deliberately making friends with someone, while 'chum up' is casual and British.
- pal up
- Very similar in meaning and informality, but 'pal up' is also used in American English.
- make friends
- The general phrase; it does not need 'with' in the same way and is not restricted to British English.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: chum up or cheer up?
chum up vs cheer up
Means to become happier, not to make friends. 'Chum up' is about forming friendships.
Practice
Which sentence uses 'chum up' correctly?
Choose one answer.
'Chum up' is intransitive and takes 'with' when mentioning the person. 'Chum up to' is possible but less common and often suggests trying to get an advantage, so option 0 is the most natural and neutral.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “chum up”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.