# chem
## English
### Etymology

Clippings.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /kɛm/
* Audio (Southern England):(file)
* Rhymes: -ɛm

### Noun

chem (countable and uncountable, plural chems)
* (uncountable, university slang, often capitalized) Clipping of chemistry (“branch of natural science”); usually referring to the subject or the department.
** 2015 June 9, Lilah Raptopoulos, quoting Reed Shapiro, “Young people speak out about their fears and hopes on climate change”, in The Guardian‎:It boils down to science. Biology, chemistry and physics. I used to hate bio and chem. Now they fascinate me because I’ve realised they make up the world around us as well as us.
* (countable, informal, often in the plural) Clipping of chemical.
** 2016 August 4, Catherine Taylor, “The Many by Wyl Menmuir review – a disturbing debut”, in The Guardian‎:The seas, morosely fished by Ethan and the others, are heavily polluted, with Ethan informing Timothy, who risked a freezing dip: “If the tide doesn’t get you, the chems will. You want to stay healthy past forty, alive past fifty, you’ll remember to stay well out of the water.”
** 2021 January 21, “'This is my baby!' - Heartache as police rip baby away from breastfeeding mum”, in The New Zealand Herald‎:The baby's parents tell of how they wash him with "fresh fluoride chlorine chemical-free water from the sky" and how those with him now are most likely "using artificial perfume and bathing him in chems".
** A chemical weapon.
*** 2022 March 24, “Biden press conference gives Putin less than nothing to fear”, in New York Post‎:This is the very opposite of what we’ve called for — namely, for Biden to publicly identify in advance a specific US (at least) hard-power response to Putin’s use of chems (or other weapons of mass destruction).
** A recreational drug.
    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:recreational drug
*** 2016 May 10, Ben Guarino, “The ‘chemsex’ scene: An increasingly popular and sometimes lethal public-health problem”, in The Washington Post‎:“I actively searched for someone to tell me how they’d made an informed and calculated choice to use chems and, that for them, the chem scene is just recreation.” […] “Even those who told me sex on chems made them feel ‘like a don’ would follow up such celebratory statements with tales of rejection, regret, loneliness and longing for intimacy,” he said.
*** 2017, James Wharton, Something for the Weekend‎, Biteback Publishing, →ISBN:When you think ‘drugs’, you think Trainspotting. ‘Chems’ is easier off the tongue and, although explicit, it doesn't feel quite as bad. At least to us.

#### Derived terms

* chemsex
* O-chem

### Adjective

chem (not comparable)
* (informal) Clipping of chemical.
    chem plant; chem weapons
** 2017 April 13, David M. Tafuri, “Why Trump’s Attack on Syria Is Legal”, in Politico Magazine‎:[“]Use of chem weapons is horrific,” tweeted ACLU national security lawyer Hina Shamsi, “but Trump’s military action violates Constitution & U.N. charter. No legit domestic or international law basis.”

#### Derived terms

* chem suit

### Further reading

* “chem”, in Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 1999–present.
* “chems”, in Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 1999–present.

### Anagrams

* Emch, Mech, Mech., mech, mech.

## Chinese
### Etymology

From clipping of English chemistry.

### Pronunciation

* Cantonese (Jyutping): kem$^1$
* Cantonese
** (Standard Cantonese, Guangzhou–Hong Kong)
*** Jyutping: kem$^1$
*** Cantonese Pinyin: kem$^1$
*** Guangdong Romanization: kém$^1$
*** Sinological IPA : /kʰɛːm⁵⁵/

### Noun

chem
* (Hong Kong Cantonese, colloquial) chemistry

### See also

* phy chem bio

## Romanian
### Verb

chem
* first-person singular present indicative/subjunctive of chema