[Found first in end of 16th c. The origin and early history are obscure and complicated. It is possible that the different senses had two or even three different origins. Thus, branch I was app. formed on CONSORT sb.1, with the notion of ‘act as a consort to.’ Branch II cannot be separated from a simple verb SORT, very common from c. 1570 onwards in all the senses 3–6 below. In sense 3 there was obviously sometimes association with L. sors, sortem, F. sort lot, fate, destiny. Branch III is intimately associated with CONSORT sb.2, branch II. But even if thus originally distinct, the senses appear to have been considered as belonging to one word, and to have mutually influenced each other, for some uses combine the different ideas: cf. 4, 5, with 1; 7 with 3, 5, 6. Cf. also obs. It. consortare ‘to consort together’ (Florio, 1611), f. consorte mate, consort. There were also med.L. vbs. consortare, -ari, to lie adjacent, have common boundaries. No trace of the vb. appears in French, Old or New.]
I. † 1. trans. To accompany, keep company with; to escort, attend. Obs.
1588. Shaks., L. L. L., II. i. 178. Sweet health and faire desires consort your grace.
1609. Heywood, Brit. Troy, XVI. iv. Ten thousand voluntary men unprest Consort him. Ibid. (1615), Foure Prentises, Wks. 1874, II. 217. Wilt thou consort me, beare me company.
c. 1611. Chapman, Iliad, VIII. 389. They in golden thrones Consorted other Deities, replete with passions. Ibid. (1618), Hesiod’s Georg., I. 309. Ill-complexion’d Spight Shall consort all the miserable plight Of men then living.
1622. R. Hawkins, Voy. S. Sea (1847), 12. The sayd ship consorting another of a hundred tonnes.
† 2. To be a consort or spouse to, to espouse; to have sexual commerce with. Obs.
1615. Chapman, Odyss., I. 429. And such as may consort with grace So dear a daughter of so great a race. Ibid. (1618), Hesiod’s Bk. Days, 46 The great Twentieth day Consort thy wife.
II. 3. To associate in a common lot, to sort together (persons or things). Const. with.
1588. R. Parke, trans. Mendoza’s Hist. China, 65. The other sort of souldiers are strangers, and are consorted for yeares or monethes to serue.
1593. Donne, Sat., I. (R.). In this … wooden chest, Consorted with these few books, let me lie In prison.
1596. M. Roydon, Elegy, in Spenser’s Wks. (Globe), 569/1. Consort me quickly with the dead.
1670. Milton, Hist. Eng., II. Wks. (1851), 29. As it were consorted in the same destiny with the decrease and fall of vertue.
1833. T. Hamilton, Men & Mann. Amer., I. vi. 147. He is consorted involuntarily with people to whom he is bound by no tie.
1836. I. Taylor, Phys. Th. Another Life (1857), 178. The heterogeneous elements … consorted within the animal organization.
1868. Milman, St. Paul’s, 333. Atheism, with which it [Arminianism] was consorted in popular language.
† 4. refl. To associate oneself (with), to keep company. Obs. (Cf. CONSORTED, quot. 1588.)
1594. J. King, Ionas (1618), 136. They had entertained and consorted themselues with disobedient Ionas.
1599. B. Jonson, Ev. Man out of Hum., II. vi. That you can consort yourselves with such poor Seam-rent Fellows.
1607. Dekker, Westw. Hoe, I. Wks. 1873, II. 287. Your consorting your selfe with Noble men … hath vndone vs.
1633. Bp. Hall, Hard Texts N. T., 209. I have written to you … not to consort yourselves in the company of inordinate Christians.
1692. Locke, Educ. (1727), § 212. When he begins to consort himself with men, and thinks himself one.
5. intr. To associate, to join or keep company.
1588–98. Hackluyt, Voy., I. II. 222. All these consorted to goe to Goa together, and I determined to goe with them, and caused a palanchine to be made for me of canes.
1633. Bp. Hall, Hard Texts N. T., 141. Consorting in their frugal and temperate meales.
1680. H. More, Apocal. Apoc., 170. To consort together.
1816. Southey, Poet’s Pilgr., I. 33. So we consorted here as seemed best.
1847. Emerson, Poems, Saadi, Wks. (Bohn), I. 472. Men consort in camp and town, But the poet dwells alone.
1873. Browning, Red Cott. Nt.-cap, 195. O friend, who makest warm my wintry world, And wise my heaven, if there we consort too!
b. Const. with; also of ships.
1590. Shaks., Mids. N., III. ii. 386. They … must for aye consort with black-browd night. Ibid. (1605), Macb., II. iii. 141. Let’s not consort with them.
1611. Bible, Acts xvii. 4.
1667. Milton, P. L., IX. 954. If Death Consort with thee, Death is to mee as Life.
1697. Dampier, Voy. (1698), I. 39. We sailed from hence … we consorted, because Captain Yanky … was afraid the French would take away his Bark.
1751. Johnson, Rambler, No. 141, ¶ 10. I consorted with none that looked into books.
1824. W. Irving, T. Trav., I. 314. [He] kept loose company and consorted with actors.
1848. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., II. 609. They consorted with Lutherans.
c. To have intercourse with. (? related to 2.)
c. 1600. Timon, I. v. (1842), 18. Louelie Venus sported And with Mars consorted.
1868. J. H. Blunt. Ref. Ch. Eng., I. 108. He ceased to consort with her.
1886. Law Times, LXXXI. 178/2. The damages he has sustained by some man consorting with his wife.
6. To accord, agree, harmonize: a. to; b. with.
1599. Warn. Faire Wom., I. 447. Neither time Nor place consorted to my mind.
1641. Hinde, J. Bruen, vii. 25. A godly young woman … well consorting to himselfe and his Sonne.
1854. Syd. Dobell, Balder, xvi. 67. So that like to like consort.
1607. Walkington, Opt. Glass, iv. (1664), 55. Sorrow carries too pale a visage, to consort with his Claret Deity.
1634. R. H., Salerne’s Regim., Pref. 2. That which consorts with their Nature.
1863. Mrs. C. Clarke, Shaks. Char., xiv. 364. The decoration of the poetry, consorting … with the rural simplicity of the subject.
1866. Mill, in Edin. Rev., CXXIII. 362. It did not consort with his idea of scientific government.
III. (Cf. CONSORT sb.2 II.)
† 7. To combine in musical harmony; to play, sing or sound together. (trans. and intr.) Obs.
1590. Spenser, F. Q., II. xii. 70. All that pleasing is to living eare Was there consorted in one harmonee.
1592. Shaks., Rom. & Jul., III. i. 51. Heere’s my fiddlesticke, heere’s that shall make you daunce. Come consort.
1598. Sylvester, Du Bartas, I. v. (1641), 43/2. Suffer, at least, to my sad dying voyce, My dolefull fingers to consort their noise.
1616. Drumm., Hymn True Happiness. To haue the wit and will Consorting in one straine.
1633. G. Herbert, Temple, Easter, iii. Consort both heart and lute, and twist a song Pleasant and long.
1662. J. Tatham, Aqua Tri., 3. The Watermen who are continually in action, consort into this Song, being set for three parts.
1694. W. Holder, Harmony (1731), 48. If the Length of A be to that of B as 3 to 2, and consequently the Vibrations as 2 to 3, their Sounds will consort in a Fifth.
a. 1734. North, Lives, II. 88. He had an harpsichord at his bed-chamber-door, which a friend touched to his voice. But he cared not for a set of masters to consort it with him.
