Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To bring to completion or fruition; conclude: consummate a business transaction.
- v. To realize or achieve; fulfill: a dream that was finally consummated with the publication of her first book.
- v. To complete (a marriage) with the first act of sexual intercourse after the ceremony.
- v. To fulfill (a sexual desire or attraction) especially by intercourse.
- adj. Complete or perfect in every respect: consummate happiness. See Synonyms at perfect.
- adj. Supremely accomplished or skilled: "Sargent was now a consummate master of brushwork” ( Roberta Smith).
- adj. Complete; utter: a consummate bore.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To finish by completing what was intended; perfect; bring or curry to the utmost point or degree; carry or bring to completion; complete; achieve.
- Specifically To complete (a marriage) by sexual intercourse.
- Complete; perfect; carried to the utmost extent or degree: as, consummate felicity; consummate hypocrisy.
Wiktionary
- adj. Complete in every detail, perfect, absolute.
- adj. highly skilled and experienced; fully qualified
- v. To bring (a task, project, goal etc.) to completion; to accomplish.
- v. To make perfect, achieve, give the finishing touch
- v. To make (a marriage) complete by engaging in first sexual intercourse.
- v. To become perfected, receive the finishing touch
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Carried to the utmost extent or degree; of the highest quality; complete; perfect.
- v. To bring to completion; to raise to the highest point or degree; to complete; to finish; to perfect; to achieve.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. having or revealing supreme mastery or skill
- adj. without qualification; used informally as (often pejorative) intensifiers
- v. fulfill sexually
- adj. perfect and complete in every respect; having all necessary qualities
- v. make perfect; bring to perfection
Etymologies
- Middle English consummaten, from Latin cōnsummāre, cōnsummāt- : com-, com- + summa, sum; see sum1.
Examples
“He was known as a consummate and extraordinarily discreet bureaucrat, but before the Bay of Pigs fiasco he had done little for the new administration and had no real sense of what his fate would be in the new regime.”
“It should be noted that Keiji Fukuda of WHO is a close associate of Nancy Cox of the misnamed CDC who has developed a maximally virulent H5N1 Reassortment Bioweapon described in consummate detail in the March 23, 2005 Wall Street Journal.”
Think Progress » An Inconvenient Truth and An Intolerable Summer
“Throughout his career, Bob was known as a consummate technician, a great heel, and the source of a subtle in-ring sense of humor that was often lost on the masses.”
“Laurence, a former IT worker from Essex, says passing his test was due to the support of his driving instructor, whom he describes as a consummate professional who willed him on despite their mutual frustration.”
Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph
“That's why Jones is often referred to as the consummate team player.”
“Taylor Bean leader Lee Farkas , whom federal prosecutors described as a "consummate fraudster," was found guilty of misappropriating about $3 billion and trying to fraudulently obtain more than $550 million from the government's Troubled Asset Relief Program in a failed effort to prop up Colonial.”
The Wall Street Journal: BofA Defends $1.75 Billion Claim Over Colonial Bank Deals
“Slender and stylish, the 66-year-old conductor is best known as a consummate communicator about classical music, most notably in his "Keeping Score" national television series for PBS.”
“By the markedly downsized standard in the past two decades of what passes for liberal positions on issues, Pelosi can be called the consummate liberal.”
Earl Ofari Hutchinson: Pelosi Has Back Pedaled Just as Fast as Obama
“The testimony in the trial, which is heading for final arguments as early as Tuesday, calls into question whether Mr. Cheney, known as a consummate inside player, operated as effectively as his reputation would hold.”
“COOPER: When Scott McClellan was White House press secretary, he was known as the consummate loyal team player.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘consummate’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4084 more...
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@vcb.etym.prjct - SAT Catchall
brainfood for my hungry, eager pupils
iconoclast, glacial, agnostic, histrionic, treacly, contemptuous, captious, bombastic, bombast, perfidy, quiescence, sordid and 148 more...
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gre
municipal, whit, dissembler, berate, liberally, embellish, dissimilitude, histrionics, flamboyance, bombastic, bovine, calumny and 142 more...
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Words build meanings from origins( etymology )
These come from gamma meditation ,I think.
discursive, exogenous, machinations, purportedly, sumptuous, congruity, cantankerous, incongruous, festoon, hessian, ratiocinative, stratigraphic and 837 more...
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Kangaroo Words
Words containing letters in sequence, together or apart, that form a definition or instance of the subsuming word. E.g., conTAmINaTe = the kangaroo word. TAINT = the joey. Theme from a NYT X-word ...
encourage, chariot, precipitation, neurotic, feaster, unsightly, charisma, inheritor, masculine, honorable, contaminate, regulate and 103 more...
milosrdenstvi It sounds like it could be plausible in British English. Apr 21, 2010
chained_bear I haven't heard the second example, ever. Only "CONsummaate" for the verb, and "CONs'mm'te" for the adjective.
Either way, if you're responding to oroboros' comment, you should know this is just one of his "kangaroo words." (See list link at right.) Apr 21, 2010
doswald For the pronounciation, I was taught that CON-sum-MATE is for the verb, and con-SUMM-it is for the adjective. Apr 21, 2010
oroboros consumMATE Oct 21, 2009