Definitions

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

  • noun The act or process of consuming.
  • noun The state of being consumed.
  • noun An amount consumed.
  • noun Economics The using up of goods and services by consumer purchasing or in the production of other goods.
  • noun A progressive wasting of body tissue.
  • noun Pulmonary tuberculosis. No longer in scientific use.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In Roman law, loss of a right of action after commencement of the suit.
  • noun The act of consuming; destruction as by decomposition, burning, eating, etc.; hence, destruction of substance; annihilation.
  • noun Specifically Dissipation or destruction by use; in polit. ccon., the use or expenditure of the products of industry, or of anything having an exchangeable value.
  • noun The state of being wasted or diminished.
  • noun In medicine: A wasting away of the flesh; a gradual attenuation of the body; progressive emaciation: a word of comprehensive signification
  • noun More specifically, a disease of the lungs accompanied by fever and emaciation, often but not invariably fatal: called technically phthisis, or phthisis pulmonaris. See phthisis and tuberculosis.

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

  • noun The act or process of consuming by use, waste, etc.; decay; destruction.
  • noun The state or process of being consumed, wasted, or diminished; waste; diminution; loss; decay.
  • noun (Med.) A progressive wasting away of the body; esp., that form of wasting, attendant upon pulmonary phthisis and associated with cough, spitting of blood, hectic fever, etc.; pulmonary phthisis; -- called also pulmonary consumption.
  • noun (Med.) inflammation and ulceration of the intestines from tubercular disease.

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

  • noun The act of consuming something.
  • noun The amount consumed.
  • noun pathology The wasting-away of the human body through disease.
  • noun pathology, dated Pulmonary tuberculosis.

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

  • noun (economics) the utilization of economic goods to satisfy needs or in manufacturing
  • noun the act of consuming something
  • noun the process of taking food into the body through the mouth (as by eating)
  • noun involving the lungs with progressive wasting of the body

Etymologies

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

[Middle English consumpcioun, from Latin cōnsūmptiō, cōnsūmptiōn-, a consuming, from cōnsūmptus, past participle of cōnsūmere, to consume; see consume.]

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word consumption.

Examples

  • Double, treble if you will, the present consumption of France, and _you will still find that a very small portion of her soil will suffice for this consumption_.

    Sophisms of the Protectionists Fr��d��ric Bastiat 1825

  • Lima, Peru, on the other hand, has its raw sewage flowing directly into the Pacific Ocean, along with other run-off, and the dead-zone there has become so large as to have cost effects on the local fishing industry (percentage of dietary protein consumption is falling etc.).

    Matthew Yglesias » ARRA and Density 2010

  • Fisher vigorously opposed using the term consumption which he equated with destructive acts.

    Taxonomical Equivalence Part I Lawrence A. Hunter 2010

  • Some of the rise in consumption is due to the insurgents 'use of improvised explosive devices, which account for about 30 percent of all American combat deaths since the occupation began.

    Gas Pains 2005

  • Some of the rise in consumption is due to the insurgents 'use of improvised explosive devices, which account for about 30 percent of all American combat deaths since the occupation began.

    Gas Pains 2005

  • Now, in the first place, our analysis of saving and the confinement of the term consumption to direct embodiments of utility and convenience forbid us to acknowledge that the action of the United States or the analogy of the improving landowner is a case of over-consumption at all.

    The Evolution of Modern Capitalism A Study of Machine Production 1899

  • Fisher vigorously opposed using the term consumption which he equated with destructive acts.

    Forbes.com: News Lawrence A. Hunter 2010

  • The average mobile phone data consumption is therefore worth approx.

    P2P: worth more than the Global Financial Crisis 2009

  • Cutting or limiting soda consumption is a good step towards improving health and fitness.

    Gordon Campbell: The Obesity Epidemic: One Way to Encourage Healthier Eating Gordon Campbell 2010

  • Cutting or limiting soda consumption is a good step towards improving health and fitness.

    Gordon Campbell: The Obesity Epidemic: One Way to Encourage Healthier Eating Gordon Campbell 2010

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • "The consumer culture propelled more suburbanites into the workforce, leaving the abandoned neighbourhoods less lively and less neighbourly. When the workers came home, they were tired. The private life of consumption and convenience was steadily winning out over a public life that was rich in social, natural and cultural connections. PTA participation was inversely proportional to rising incomes. The hurry-up mindset of postwar housing shortages had become the law of the land, scripted into thick tomes of municipal code that often specified resource-exhausting, time-consuming patterns of development."

    - D. Chiras & D. Wan, 'Superbia!'.

    November 4, 2008

  • Emily in a letter to her dead father: Now that the days are getting cool Aunt Elizabeth makes me wear my thick flannel petticoat. I hate it. It makes me so bunchy. But Aunt Elizabeth says I must wear it because you died of consumption.

    -L.M. Montgomery, "Emily of New Moon"

    April 13, 2009

  • an advanced stage is called galloping consumption

    May 29, 2009