Chummy means overly warm and familiar, as if you were old friends. Usually when you are not.
The suspicion is what makes the word useful, since describing two people as chummy suggests a closeness that is either unearned or slightly improper, and journalism uses it about relationships between regulators and the companies they regulate. Applied straightforwardly it just means friendly. The noun chum is a dated word for a friend and survives mainly in old school stories and in mock-formal address.
1adjectivechummyFriendly in an over-familiar way.
“They were far too chummy with the contractors.”
Also accepted in games: pally, friendly
From chum + -y.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Man Called Ove
First appears in chapter 20 of A Man Called Ove.
Practise this word