cum

Learned borrowing from Latin cum (“with”).

• IPA^(key): /kʌm/, /kʊm/^[1][2][3]

• Audio (UK):

  (file)

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌm, -ʊm

cum

1. Used in indicating a thing or person which has two or more roles, functions, or natures, or a which has changed from one to another.

   He built a bus-cum-greenhouse that made a bold statement, but the plants in it didn't live very long.

   But instead of being a salesperson cum barista cum waitress merely serving the wordsmiths, I'm one of them, reading her latest baby out loud.

   • 1926-1950, George Bernard Shaw, Collected Letters: 1926-1950‎^[1], University of California/Viking, published 1985, page 31:

     He is too good an actor to need that sort of tomfoolery: the effect will be far better if he is a credible mining camp elder-cum-publican.

   • 1944 May and June, “Notes and News: The Snailbeach District Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 183:

     One driver-cum-fireman-cum-fitter looks after the three locomotives, [...].

   • 2001 Nov/Dec, David Sachs, “LET THEM EAT BITS”, in American Spectator, volume 34, number 8, page 78:

     The banner shows a yellowed silhouette of a boy (possibly Calvin, of Calvin & Hobbes) urinating on an EU flag. Sites such as this show the full power of the Internet as a propaganda medium cum travel service cum organizing tool. Oh, and nightlife directory.

   • 2023 February 5, Kathryn Parsons, “Boom times are back in San Francisco’s tech mecca”, in The Sunday Times‎^[2]:

     Coffee shops-cum-meeting-spots dotted across the city are teeming (Equator, Blue Bottle and Saint Frank). Caffeine-fuelled, lactose-intolerant, macadamia milk latte-drinking young folk are journalling, manifesting, coding, ChatGPT-ing and pitching their ideas.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:cum.

Also used in some British place names and civil parish names, see table below

Variant of come, attested (in the basic sense "come, move from further to nearer, arrive") since Old English. The sexual sense of come is attested since the 1650s. In this sense and spelling, attested from 1970s.^[4]

• IPA^(key): /kʌm/, enPR: kŭm^[1][2][3]

• Audio (UK):

  (file)

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌm
• Homophone: come

cum (uncountable)

2. (colloquial, often vulgar) Semen.

   Synonyms: jizz, (chiefly UK) spunk, (US) spooge, nut, skeet, junk; see also Thesaurus:semen

   • 1977, John Rechy, The Sexual Outlaw, New York: Dell, →ISBN, page 73:

     Jim descends into the murky tunnel; the faint odor of cum permeates the air.

   • 1989 December 24, Read Weaver, “Queers For Years”, in Gay Community News, volume 17, number 24, page 9:

     Licking a friend's cum off another friend's belly.

   • 2014, Norm Macdonald Live, season 2, episode 3, spoken by Norm Macdonald:

     This week I learned that cum tastes like nickels.

3. (colloquial, often vulgar) Female ejaculatory discharge.
4. (colloquial, often vulgar) An ejaculation.

cum (third-person singular simple present cums, present participle cumming, simple past came or (nonstandard) cummed, past participle come or cum or (nonstandard) cummed)

1. (slang, often vulgar) To have an orgasm, to feel the sensation of an orgasm.

   Synonym: climax

   (Can we add an example for this sense?)

3. (slang, often vulgar) To ejaculate.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:ejaculate

   • 1997 July 14, “Visits, Conjugal, and Otherwise”, in Oz, season 1, episode 2, spoken by Augustus Hill (Harold Perrineau):

     I got no sensation down there, so I don't know when I'm hard, I don't know when I cum. My wife's gotta tell me.

   • 2019, “All Humans Too Late”, in The Book of Traps and Lessons, performed by Kae Tempest:

     Sucking on pork ribs and summoning pornography / So that we can cum when we fuck / Our partners don’t know us / Our families are strangers

4. Eye dialect spelling of come (“move from further to nearer; arrive”).
   • 1882, William Makepeace Thayer, From Log-Cabin to White House, page 162:

     “Where'd he cum from?” the bowman inquired. “That's what we'd like ter know, yer see; where he cum from, and how he happen'd to cum,” responded the steersman. “But he's a jolly good feller, strong as a lion, […] ”

Many style guides and editors recommend the spelling come for verb uses (to orgasm/to ejaculate) while strictly allowing the spelling cum for the noun (semen/female ejaculatory discharge). Both spellings are sometimes found in either the noun or verb sense, however. Others prefer to distinguish in formality, using come for any formal usage and cum only in slang, erotic or pornographic contexts.^[5]

The past tense and past participle variant cummed is used when the verb is felt as a denominal from the noun rather than a specialized sense of the verb come.

cum (not comparable)

1. Clipping of cumulative.

cum (uncountable)

1. Abbreviation of cubic metre.

   The density of cement is 1440 kg/cum.

• CMU, MCU, MUC, UMC

• cumu

From Vulgar Latin *quomo, from Latin quōmodo.

cum

1. how

cum

1. how

• ꨌꨭꩌ

• IPA^(key): /cum/

cum

1. to kiss
2. to smell (something)

From Old Irish cummaid (“fashions, shapes, composes, determines; makes, creates, devises”), from cummae (“act of cutting, carving, hacking, destroying, butchering; act of shaping, fashioning, composing; shape, form, appearance”) (compare modern cuma).

• (Munster, Galway) IPA^(key): /kuːmˠ/
• (Mayo, Ulster) IPA^(key): /kʊmˠ/

cum (present analytic cumann, future analytic cumfaidh, verbal noun cumadh, past participle cumtha) (transitive, intransitive)

1. to form (give shape)
2. to compose (construct by mental labor; to think up)
3. to invent, make up, coin
4. to concoct (contrive something using skill or ingenuity)
5. to manufacture, fabricate (a story, excuse etc.)

• Ó Dónaill, Niall (1977) “cum”, in Foclóir Gaeilge–Béarla, Dublin: An Gúm, →ISBN
• Gregory Toner, Sharon Arbuthnot, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, Marie-Luise Theuerkauf, Dagmar Wodtko, editors (2019), “cummaid”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language
• de Bhaldraithe, Tomás (1959) “cum”, in English-Irish Dictionary, An Gúm
• “cum”, in New English-Irish Dictionary, Foras na Gaeilge, 2013-2024

• cũ, ꝯ (abbreviations, Medieval Latin, Renaissance Latin, early modern)
• kom, com (Archaic Latin)
• -cum (used with pronouns)

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /kum/, [kʊ̃ˑ]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /kum/, [kum]

From Old Latin com, from Proto-Italic *kom, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱóm (“next to, at, with, along”). Cognate with Proto-Germanic *ga- (“co-”), Proto-Slavic *sъ(n) (“with”).

The ablative is from the PIE comitative-instrumental.

cum (+ ablative)

1. with, along with

   Titus cum familiā habitat. ― Titus lives with his family.

   magnā cum laude ― with great praise

2. at (denoting a point in time with which an action coincides)

   Mīlitēs cum prīmā lūce vēnērunt. ― The soldiers came at day-break.

3. -fold (with ordinal number)

   cum centesimo efficere ― to yield a hundredfold

From Old Latin quom, from Proto-Indo-European *kʷóm, accusative of *kʷos, *kʷis. Compare its feminine form quam (as in tum-tam).

• quom (pre-Classical, Classical Latin)
• quum (post-classical)

cum

1. [with subjunctive]
   1. (causal) when, after [with imperfect subjunctive or pluperfect subjunctive]
   2. because, since
   3. although
2. [with indicative]
   1. (temporal) when, while [with present indicative or perfect indicative]

• In the sense of when, if there is no causal link between the verb in the dependent clause and the verb in the main clause (sometimes called an inverted cum-clause, as the 'main action' of the sentence occurs in the dependent clause), the indicative is used rather than the subjunctive.

  Per viam ambulābāmus cum pugnam vīdimus. [not *vīderīmus]

  We were walking through the street when we saw a fight.

• Often coupled with tum, such that tum X, cum Y means "then X, when Y", and cum X tum Y means "not only X but also Y".

  27 BCE – 25 BCE, Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita I.13:

  movet res cum multitudinem tum duces

  This event not only shocked the crowd but also the commanders

• tum

• quomque, cumque
• quondam
• quoniam
• umquam

• (preposition) “cum”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• (conjunction) “cum”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “cum”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• cum in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• cum in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎^[3], London: Macmillan and Co.
  • a storm accompanied by heavy claps of thunder: tempestas cum magno fragore (caeli) tonitribusque (Liv. 1. 16)
    
  • to have the same boundaries; to be coterminous: continentem esse terrae or cum terra (Fam. 15. 2. 2)
    
  • at the same moment that, precisely when: eo ipso tempore, cum; tum ipsum, cum
    
  • occasions arise for..: incidunt tempora, cum
    
  • I have not seen you for five years: quinque anni sunt or sextus annus est, cum te non vidi
    
  • to live to see the day when..: diem videre, cum...
    
  • with many tears: multis cum lacrimis
    
  • with many tears: magno cum fletu
    
  • so-and-so is in a very satisfactory position; prospers: agitur praeclare, bene cum aliquo
    
  • under such circumstances: quae cum ita sint
    
  • to struggle with adversity: conflictari (cum) adversa fortuna
    
  • to balance a loss by anything: damnum compensare cum aliqua re
    
  • to form a friendship with any one: amicitiam cum aliquo jungere, facere, inire, contrahere
    
  • I am on good terms with a person: est or intercedit mihi cum aliquo amicitia
    
  • I am on bad terms with a person: sunt or intercedunt mihi cum aliquo inimicitiae
    
  • to be bound by the closest ties of friendship: artissimo amicitiae vinculo or summa familiaritate cum aliquo coniunctum esse
    
  • to be at enmity with a man: inimicitias gerere, habere, exercere cum aliquo
    
  • to make a person one's enemy: inimicitias cum aliquo suscipere
    
  • to reconcile two people; to be a mediator: in gratiam aliquem cum aliquo reducere
    
  • to be reconciled; to make up a quarrel: in gratiam cum aliquo redire
    
  • to expostulate with a person about a thing: conqueri, expostulare cum aliquo de aliqua re
    
  • I heard him say..: ex eo audivi, cum diceret
    
  • to confuse true with false: vera cum falsis confundere
    
  • to imbibe error from one's mother's breasts: errorem cum lacte nutricis sugere (Tusc. 3. 1. 2)
    
  • (1) to communicate one's plans to some one; (2) to make common cause with a person. Similarly c. causam, rationem: consilia cum aliquo communicare
    
  • to think over, consider a thing: secum (cum animo) reputare aliquid
    
  • to think over, consider a thing: considerare in, cum animo, secum aliquid
    
  • to enjoy close intercourse with... (of master and pupil): multum esse cum aliquo (Fam. 16. 21)
    
  • to be closely connected with a thing: cohaerere, coniunctum esse cum aliqua re
    
  • to maintain a controversy with some one: controversiam (contentionem) habere cum aliquo
    
  • to come to an understanding with a person: transigere aliquid cum aliquo
    
  • to agree with a person: consentire, idem sentire cum aliquo
    
  • to disagree with a person: dissentire, dissidere ab or cum aliquo
    
  • to be united by having a common language: eiusdem linguae societate coniunctum esse cum aliquo (De Or. 3. 59. 223)
    
  • to hold an altercation with a man: verbis concertare or altercari cum aliquo (B. C. 3. 19. 6)
    
  • to correspond with some one: colloqui cum aliquo per litteras
    
  • to my sorrow: cum magno meo dolore
    
  • my relations with him are most hospitable: mihi cum illo hospitium est, intercedit
    
  • to become a friend and guest of a person: hospitium cum aliquo facere, (con-)iungere
    
  • to associate with some one: societatem inire, facere cum aliquo
    
  • to be always in some one's company: assiduum esse cum aliquo
    
  • to be on friendly terms with a person: usu, familiaritate, consuetudine coniunctum esse cum aliquo
    
  • to be on friendly terms with a person: est mihi consuetudo, or usus cum aliquo
    
  • to be on friendly terms with a person: vivere cum aliquo
    
  • relations are strained between us: in simultate cum aliquo sum
    
  • to enter into conversation with some one: sermonem conferre, instituere, ordiri cum aliquo
    
  • to enter into conversation with some one: se dare in sermonem cum aliquo
    
  • to converse, talk with a person on a subject: sermonem habere cum aliquo de aliqua re (De Am. 1. 3)
    
  • to meet a person by arrangement, interview him: congredi cum aliquo
    
  • to speak personally to..: coram loqui (cum aliquo)
    
  • to shake hands with a person: dextram iungere cum aliquo, dextras inter se iungere
    
  • to be married to some one: nuptam esse cum aliquo or alicui
    
  • to separate from, divorce (of the man): divortium facere cum uxore
    
  • to have business relations with some one: contrahere rem or negotium cum aliquo (Cluent. 14. 41)
    
  • to transact, settle a matter with some one: transigere aliquid (de aliqua re) cum aliquo or inter se
    
  • to do no business with a man: nihil cum aliquo contrahere
    
  • to balance accounts with some one: rationes putare cum aliquo
    
  • to be content with 12 per cent at compound interest: centesimis cum anatocismo contentum esse (Att. 5. 21. 12)
    
  • to contend with some one for the pre-eminence: contendere cum aliquo de principatu (Nep. Arist. 1)
    
  • to submit a formal proposition to the people: agere cum populo (Leg. 3. 4. 10)
    
  • to be on a person's side (not ab alicuius partibus): ab (cum) aliquo stare (Brut. 79. 273)
    
  • to take some one's side: cum aliquo facere (Sull. 13. 36)
    
  • to conspire with some one: conspirare cum aliquo (contra aliquem)
    
  • to have unlimited power; to be invested with imperium: cum imperio esse (cf. XVI. 3)
    
  • to go to law with a person: (ex) iure, lege agere cum aliquo
    
  • to proceed against some one with the utmost rigour of the law; to strain the law in one's favour: summo iure agere cum aliquo (cf. summum ius, summa iniuria)
    
  • to live with some one on an equal footing: aequo iure vivere cum aliquo
    
  • to isolate a witness: aliquem a ceteris separare et in arcam conicere ne quis cum eo colloqui possit (Mil. 22. 60)
    
  • to join forces with some one: copias (arma) cum aliquo iungere or se cum aliquo iungere
    
  • to hold a high command: cum imperio esse
    
  • to be armed: cum telo esse
    
  • to begin a war with some one: bellum cum aliquo inire
    
  • to make war on a person: bellum gerere cum aliquo
    
  • to advance with the army: procedere cum exercitu
    
  • with wife and child: cum uxoribus et liberis
    
  • to come to close quarters: manum (us) conserere cum hoste
    
  • to come to close quarters: signa conferre cum hoste
    
  • to fight a pitched, orderly battle with an enemy: iusto (opp. tumultuario) proelio confligere cum hoste (Liv. 35. 4)
    
  • a hand-to-hand engagement ensued: tum pes cum pede collatus est (Liv. 28. 2)
    
  • with great loss: magno cum detrimento
    
  • to treat with some one about peace: agere cum aliquo de pace
    
  • to make peace with some one: pacem facere cum aliquo
    
  • to conclude a treaty with some one: pactionem facere cum aliquo (Sall. Iug. 40)
    
  • to conclude a treaty, an alliance: foedus facere (cum aliquo), icere, ferire
    
  • allow me to say: bona (cum) venia tua dixerim
    
  • putting aside, except: cum discessi, -eris, -eritis ab
    

Linngithigh cardinal numbers

<  2	3	4  >
Cardinal : cum     Adverbial : cumodh

cum

1. three

From Old Irish con·gaib. Cognate with Irish coinnigh and Scottish Gaelic cum.

cum (verbal noun cummal)

1. grip, hold
2. keep, arrest, retain
3. contain
4. live, inhabit
5. celebrate

From Middle Irish cummaid, a denominative verb from cumma, itself from Old Irish cummae (“shape, form, appearance”).

cum (verbal noun cummey)

1. plan, devise
2. fabricate, shape, mould
3. indite

Manx mutation
Radical	Lenition	Eclipsis
cum	chum	gum
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.

• IPA^(key): /kum/

cum

1. singular imperative of cuman

cum

1. Alternative form of come (“as, like”)

• ·cumai

• IPA^(key): [kuβ̃]

·cum

1. Alternative form of ·cumai,^[1] third-person singular present subjunctive prototonic of con·icc

• Hyphenation: cum

From contraction of preposition com (“with”) + masculine article um (“a”). Compare Galician cun.

cum m sg (masculine plural cuns, feminine singular cuma, feminine plural cumas)

1. (Portugal, informal) Contraction of com um (“with a”).

cum

1. (Brazil, Internet slang) Eye dialect spelling of com.

For quotations using this term, see Citations:cum.

• “cum”, in Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Lisbon: Priberam, 2008–2024

From Sanskrit चुम्ब (cumba).

cum

1. kiss

• кум (cum) — post-1930s Cyrillic spelling

Inherited from Late Latin quomo, from Latin quōmodo.

• IPA^(key): /ˈkum/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -um

cum

1. (interrogative or negative) how

   Cum ți-ar plăcea cafeaua?

   How would you like your coffee?

cum

1. how
2. as, since, seeing that
3. (informal) Synonym of de cum (“as soon as”)

Sense 2 is low-pitched or unstressed, while sense 3 is high-pitched or stressed.

• cum ar fi
• cum de
• cum să nu
• de cum
• și încă cum

• cum in DEX online—Dicționare ale limbii române (Dictionaries of the Romanian language)

From Middle English cumen, variant of comen, from Old English cuman. Cognate with English come and Yola coome.

• IPA^(key): /kʌm/

cum

1. to come

• “cum, v.”, in The Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–present, →OCLC.

• IPA^(key): /kʰuːm/

From Old Irish con·gaib. Cognate with Irish coinnigh and Manx cum.

cum (past chum, future cumaidh, verbal noun cumail or cumadh, past participle cumta)

1. Alternative form of cùm (“keep”)

From Old Irish cummaid (“to fashion, makes”), from cummae (“act of cutting, shaping”), verbal noun of con·ben.

cum (past chum, future cumaidh, verbal noun cumadh, past participle cumta)

1. shape, form

cum

1. Alternative form of coome
   • 1867, “DR. RUSSELL ON THE INHABITANTS AND DIALECT OF THE BARONY OF FORTH”, in APPENDIX:

     Fad didn'st thou cum t' ouz on zum other dey?

     [Why didn't you come to us on some other day?]

• Jacob Poole (d. 1827) (before 1828) William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, published 1867, page 131