Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun An opinion or position reached by a group as a whole.
  • noun General agreement or accord.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A general agreement or concord: as, a consensus of opinion.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Agreement; accord; consent.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A process of decision-making that seeks widespread agreement among group members.
  • noun General agreement among the members of a given group or community, each of which exercises some discretion in decision-making and follow-up action.
  • noun Average projected value, as in the finance term consensus forecast.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun agreement in the judgment or opinion reached by a group as a whole

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin cōnsēnsus, from past participle of cōnsentīre, to agree; see consent.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin cōnsēnsus ("agreement, accordance, unanimity"), from cōnsentiō ("feel together; agree"); see consent.

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