new chumn.adj.
/ˈnjuː ˌtʃʌm/, U.S. /ˈn(j)u ˌtʃəm/, Australian English /ˈnjuː ˌtʃʌm/, New Zealand English /ˈnjuː ˌtʃʌm/ colloquial.
A. n.† 1. Chiefly Australian. A prisoner newly admitted to a jail or prison ship; a newly arrived convict. Obsolete.
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society > authority > punishment > imprisonment > prisoner > [noun]
prisona1225
prisonerc1384
enpresonéc1425
bird1580
warder1584
canary bird1593
penitentiala1633
convict1786
chum1819
lag1819
lagger1819
new chum1819
nut-brown1835
collegian1837
canary1840
Sydney duck1873
forty1879
zebra1882
con1893
yardbird1956
zek1968
1819 J. H. Vaux New Vocab. Flash Lang. in Memoirs II. 163 Chum, a fellow prisoner in a jail, hulk, &c. so there are new chums and old chums, as they happen to have been a short or a long time in confinement.
1831 H. Savery Quintus Servinton III. 59 There's near a thousand chaps here [i.e. in the hulk], and many of 'em are real hell-fire devils..and 'twont do to draw no distinctions like, with new chums.
1865 J. F. Mortlock Experiences of Convict 110 Rather a clever ‘new chum’. Had the attempt failed, he, as a ticket-of-leave ‘bolter’, would have been sentenced to three years at Port Arthur.
2. Australian and New Zealand. A newly arrived immigrant; a new arrival to an area. Now chiefly historical.
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society > inhabiting and dwelling > inhabitant > migrant > [noun] > immigrant > types of
new chum1828
old chum1838
old hand1839
overer1871
overner1886
overun1889
landed immigrant1910
migrant1922
economic migrant1933
1828 Tasmanian 15 Aug. 4 I understood..that I was called a new chum, my English name being Stranger.
1855 Nelson (N.Z.) Examiner 14 Nov. 2 New chums come and go in great numbers.
1869 M. Clarke Peripatetic Philosopher 3 Every man who..has not had the good fortune to be born in this fovoured land..must come here as a new chum some time or other.
1937 D. Gunn Links with Past 10 She was a new chum of a good Bristol family.
1980 P. Freeman Woolshed 28 New-chums to this golden land, never dream of failure.
2000 Canberra Times (Nexis) 26 Feb. c4 The migrant flood occasioned by gold changed all that. ‘New chums’ suddenly formed the majority.
3. Australian and New Zealand. A novice, newcomer, or beginner; a person inexperienced in a particular occupation, activity, etc.
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society > education > learning > learner > [noun] > novice or beginner
younglingOE
new-comeOE
novice1340
ginner?c1400
beginner1470
apprentice1489
prentice1489
infant1526
freshmana1557
intrant1560
enterer1565
puny?1570
weakling1575
new comeling1587
novist1587
incipient1589
puisne1592
abecedary1596
neophyte1600
abecedarian1603
bachelor1604
novelist?1608
alphabetary1611
breeching boy1611
tiro1611
alphabetarian1614
principiant1619
unexperienced1622
velvet head1631
undergraduatea1659
young stager1664
greenhorn1672
battledore boy1693
youngster1706
tironist1716
novitiatea1734
recruit1749
griffin1793
initiate1811
Johnny Newcome1815
Johnny Raw1823
griff1829
plebe1833
Johnny-come-lately1839
new chum1851
blanc-bec1853
fledgling1856
rookie1868
elementarian1876
tenderfoot1881
shorthorn1888
new kid1894
cheechako1897
ring-neck1898
Johnny1901
rook1902
fresh meat1908
malihini1914
initiand1915
stooge1930
intakea1943
cub1966
1851 J. Henderson Excursions & Adventures New S. Wales I. 182 He seemed to think that his being a beginner, or (as it is termed) ‘new chum’, had been taken advantage of.
1870 Trans. & Proc. N.Z. Inst. 1869 2 43 The reckless gunner.., the self-complacent ‘new chum’, with the inevitable fire-arms..will sometimes destroy..both old and young [birds].
1933 J. McCarter Love's Lunatic 43 Somehow, he had reckoned she was a new chum to station work from the jump-off.
1984 Canberra Times 31 July 1/4 The new chums [sc. the Chinese Olympic team] leapt to second place on the official medals table by taking out a second gold.
2001 Waikato Times (Hamilton, N.Z.) (Nexis) 8 Sept. 11 It seems the playoff new chums aren't frightened of playing a few grey matter games on Smith.
B. adj. (attributive).
Australian and New Zealand. That is a newly arrived immigrant, novice, etc. Also: characteristic of such a person; raw, inexperienced, unsophisticated, amateurish.
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society > inhabiting and dwelling > inhabitant > migrant > [adjective] > relating to immigrants > types of immigrant
salt water1708
transplanted1765
new chum1865
first-generation1896
second-generation1928
totok1963
1865 E. R. Chudleigh Diary 2 Feb. (1950) 165 Turned a swell [whip] handle for Dr Wareing a new chum doctor. He does not look as if he could use a whip.
1891 J. Fenton Bush Life Tasmania 153 One or two mishaps more grave than gay happened to the new-chum carriers when they got lost in the bush.
1903 Bulletin (Sydney) 28 Feb. 16/2 One is struck by the new-chum methods of conserving water.
1960 L. Masters Back-Country Tales 85 On one of my hunting trips I took a gentlemanly sort of new chum Englishman named Jim along.
1963 O. Ruhen Flockmaster 59 The blanket bed that she had slept in. There had been a new-chum attempt to soften the ground beneath it with tufts of straw-like grass.
1973 N. Fernandez Tussock Fever 1 He had not much patience with these new-chum shepherds.
Derivatives
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1850 Australasian Sporting Mag. 124 The other, needs but the addition of local experience to his performed habits of life, to exempt him from those retributive pains and penalties, which follow from the ridiculous follies, vices and conceits, of genuine and unmitigated new chumism.
1898 Bulletin (Sydney) 8 Jan. 29/2 It is a stupid error to call the Australian tea-tree a ‘ti-tree’. More than this, it is a new-chumism, a relic of Gov. Phillip.
This is a new entry (OED Third Edition, September 2003; most recently modified version published online June 2022).
> as lemmas
new chum
b. In Australia: new chum, a fresh immigrant, a ‘greenhorn’; old chum, an old and experienced settler. Also attributive and in other combinations.
ΘΚΠ
society > inhabiting and dwelling > inhabitant > migrant > [noun] > immigrant > types of
new chum1828
old chum1838
old hand1839
overer1871
overner1886
overun1889
landed immigrant1910
migrant1922
economic migrant1933
1838 T. L. Mitchell Three Exped. I. iv. 99 He was also what they term a ‘new chum’, or one newly arrived.
1846 C. P. Hodgson Reminisc. Austral. 366 ‘New Chum’, in opposition to ‘Old Chum’. The former ‘cognomen’ peculiarizing the newly arrived Emigrant; the latter as a mark of respect attached to the more experienced Colonist.
1859 W. Stones N.Z. & its Resources 77 An engagement should only be for a short period until the ‘new chum’ knows the place and people.
1863 S. Butler First Year Canterbury Settl. iv. 55 I was anxious to become an old chum as the colonial dialect calls a settler—thereby proving my new chumship most satisfactorily.
1868 F. W. Hoyle Fragments Jrnl. Shipwreck 23 My fellow passengers [were] both ‘old chums’.
1874 A. Trollope Harry Heathcote vii. 166 He's a ‘new chum’; I suppose that's his excuse.
1886 P. Clarke (title) The ‘New Chum’ in Australia..A man often means by it, ‘There's a poor weak-minded ignorant fool..All that he has learnt is but of little avail to him, nay, perhaps may hinder his graduating as an old chum. He's got to be educated all over again’.
1933 Bulletin (Sydney) 26 Apr. 11/2 The newchum engine-cleaner, before he began on his first locomotive boiler.
1956 S. Hope Diggers' Paradise 202 There are weird, nodose lizards and dragons, alarming to ‘new chums’, but, in reality, quite harmless.
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n.adj.1819as lemmas