CONSUMPTION • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Consumption

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/kənsˈəmpʃən/ /kənsˈəmʃən/ Listen

noun

Consumption n.

The act or process of consuming by use, waste, etc.; decay; destruction. "Every new advance of the price to the consumer is a new incentive to him to retrench the quality of his consumption."

The state or process of being consumed, wasted, or diminished; waste; diminution; loss; decay.

(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.

Consumption of the bowels (Med.), inflammation and ulceration of the intestines from tubercular disease.

Synonyms: Decline; waste; decay. See Decline.

See images of 'Consumption'

Etymology of 'Consumption'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar

"Consumption" Quotes from Famous Books

... ultimately ruin the eyes—but it does not interfere with the light. He humps himself over the open volume and begins to display that unerring curvalinearity of the spine that compels his mother to study braces and to fear that he will develop consumption. Yet you can study the world's health records and never find a line to prove that any man with "occupation or profession—novel reading" is recorded as dying of consumption. The humped-over attitude promotes compression ...

— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison

... did her no good. She took the root of the yucca, or soapweed, and drank the froth produced by whipping water with it, but gained no relief. The poor woman did not know that these remedies are not employed by the Indians in a case like hers, but only for toothache and, in the case of soapweed, for consumption. ...

— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier

... and became a rival both to Venice and Genoa; and some degree of civilization, or, at least, a taste for the luxuries and produce of the East was brought into the north of Europe by those who returned from the crusades. The consumption of Asiatic produce in the North, occasioned depots to be established, and Bruges and Antwerp became to the north, what Venice and Genoa were to the south of Europe. The Hans Towns rose to wealth and opulence just about that period; but the effects of wealth acquired by commerce ...

— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair

... party to her father's treacherous intrigues, if he was engaged in such. But if Memmert was his sphere for them, it was disconcerting to find her so familiar with that sphere, lightly talking of a descent in a diving-bell—hinting, too, that the mystery as to results was only for local consumption. Nevertheless, the charm of Memmert as the place we had traced Grimm to, and as the only tangible clue we had obtained, was still very great. The really cogent objection was the insuperable difficulty, known and watched as we were, of learning its significance. ...

— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers

... resolute, but sensitive. He had come on the wings of Love and Hope; he went away heavily; a housemaid's tongue had shod his elastic feet with lead in a moment; of all misfortunes, sickness was what he had not anticipated, for she looked immortal. Perhaps it was that fair and treacherous disease, consumption. Well, if it was, he would love her all the more, would wed her as soon as he was of age, and carry her to some soft Southern clime, and keep each noxious air at bay, and prolong her life, perhaps ...

— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

More quotes...