[ad. (perh. through F.) L. consūm-ĕre to take up completely, make away with, eat up, devour, waste, destroy, spend, bestow, etc., f. con- altogether + sūm-ĕre to take up, lay hold of, etc. For its pa. pple., CONSUMPT (q.v.), from L. consumptus, was in early use.
F. consumer occurs in this sense in 15th c. (Littré); but in early use E. confounded consumer and consommer (-summer): see CONSUME v.2]
1. trans. To make away with, use up destructively. Said chiefly of fire: To burn up, reduce to invisible products, or to ashes; also of any similar destructive or ‘devouring’ agent.
1382. Wyclif, Lev. vi. 23. Al … sacrifice of preestis with fier shal be consumyd.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XVI. lxix. (1495), 575. Nitrum abatyth fatnesse … consumyth and wastyth gleymy humours.
c. 1400. Destr. Troy, 9531. Fyve hundrith … shippes Consumet full cleane.
1430. Lydg., Chron. Troy, I. vi. Vnto ashes they will a man consume.
1570–6. Lambarde, Peramb. Kent (1826), 161. Two hundreth of the houses consumed by flame.
1611. Bible, Gen. xli. 30. The famine shall consume the land.
1612. Woodall, Surg. Mate, Wks. (1653), 214. Oyl of Vitriol … consumeth the teeth.
1697. Dryden, Virg. Georg., III. 844. The slow creeping Evil eats his way, Consumes the parching Limbs.
1781. Gibbon, Decl. & F., III. 241. Fire could scarcely consume the enormous beams of solid brass.
1862. Merivale, Rom. Emp. (1871), V. xlii. 138. To consume the remains in the forum.
b. To do away with by evaporation or the like, cause to disappear or vanish away. arch.
c. 1400. Lanfranc’s Cirurg., 74. Take a potel of water & of barly clensid, etc…. seþe hem to iij parties ben consumed.
1430. Lydg., Chron. Troy, I. iii. Tyll the moysture consumed be awaye.
1611. Bible, Job vii. 9. As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away.
1658. A. Fox, trans. Würtz’ Surg., II. xxiii. 141. Stir it well about … consume away the water.
1796. Mrs. Glasse, Cookery, xxi. 334. Let it simmer over the fire six or seven hours till half the water is consumed.
1860. Ruskin, Mod. Paint., V. VIII. iv. § 7. 188. Its light so great as to conceal the sea-horizon, consuming it away in descending rays.
† c. To destroy (a living being, or more usually, a race or tribe), by disease or any wasting process. Obs. Also refl.
1483. Caxton, Gold. Leg., 371/1. He [became] consumed in to a stone.
1538. Starkey, England, I. ii. 47. The pepul schold be consumyd.
1599. Broughton’s Lett., ix. 33. Consuming them vp either by executions or exactions.
1606. G. W[oodcocke], trans. Hist. Ivstine, Gg 5 a. Florianus … by cutting and launcing his owne vaines … consumed himselfe.
1621. Burton, Anat. Mel., Democr. (1676), 35/2. Let them … consume themselves with factions, superstitions, law-suits, wars and contentions.
1665. Manley, Grotius’ Low C. Warres, 325. The rest were consumed either by Poverty or Diseases.
1712. E. Cooke, Voy. S. Sea, 97. Tho’ they could not entirely subdue those invincible Savages, they tir’d, harrass’d, and consum’d them.
1732. Berkeley, Serm. Soc. Propag. Gosp., Wks. III. 243. This slow poison, jointly operating with the small-pox, and their wars … have consumed the Indians.
† d. To decompose (organic matter). Obs.
1626. Bacon, Sylva, § 330. In Church-yards, where they bury much … the Earth … will consume the Corps, in far shorter time than other earth will.
1664. Evelyn, Kal. Hort. (1729), 204. Mixing it with well-consumed Horse-dung.
e. fig. (now chiefly figuring the action of fire.)
a. 1400–50. Alexander, 894. Þe lefe hen þat laide hir first egg, Hire bodi nowe with barante is barely consumed.
c. 1440. Gesta Rom., I. xi. 36 (Harl. MS.). The felowis that comythe to the tauerne … consumythe alle the vertuys that thei receivid in baptisme.
1576. Fleming, Panopl. Epist., 92. That sorrowe, wherewith … you are most consumed.
1757. Franklin, Ess., Wks. 1840, II. 95. Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than labour wears.
1777. Sir W. Jones, Laura, Poems 82. What pains consume me, and what cares infest.
1845. S. Austin, Ranke’s Hist. Ref., III. 51. It almost consumes me … when I reflect with what stains our good cause is covered by it.
2. To spend (goods or money), esp. wastefully; to waste, squander. (Now only contextually distinguishable from 3.)
1460. Capgrave, Chron., 200. Causes were alleggid … that he had consumed the kyngis tresoure.
c. 1530. Pol. Rel. & L. Poems (1866), 33. Caste her a-way & consume her goodes.
1608. Yorksh. Trag., I. ii. 198. My husband never ceases in expense Both to consume his credit and his house.
1611. Bible, Jas. iv. 3. Ye aske amisse, that yee may consume it vpon your lusts.
1691. Wood, Ath. Oxon., II. 145. Having then consumed all his estate he grew very melancholy.
1782. Miss Burney, Cecilia (1872), I. viii. 106. Come, naked and breadless as ye are, and learn how that money is consumed.
† b. refl. To waste one’s substance, ruin oneself. Obs.
1709. Strype, Ann. Ref., I. xliii. 476. A merchant, who had consumed himself greatly by his former liberality towards the poor English Exiles.
3. To take up and exhaust as material, usually with the notion of destructive employment; to use up.
1527. R. Thorne, in Hakluyt, Voy. (1589), 253. 360 degrees of latitude to be consumed in the said foure quarters of ninety degrees a quarter.
1651. Hobbes, Leviath., II. xxx. 181. The Impositions … layd upon those things which men consume.
a. 1763. Shenstone, Elegies, XI. 27. I trimm’d my lamp, consum’d the midnight oil.
1773. Pringle, Disc. on Air, 22. An ordinary candle consumes, as it is called, about a gallon of air in a minute.
1862. Sir B. Brodie, Psychol. Inq., II. iii. 87. The nervous force is consumed equally in mental and in bodily exertion.
1878. H. H. Gibbs, Ombre, Pref. 7. My friends have consumed the two hundred copies that were struck off.
b. esp. To make away with (food), devour, swallow, eat up, drink up.
1587. Turberv., Trag. T. (1837), 134. The meate was all consumde, the dishes emptie stoode.
1659. B. Harris, Parival’s Iron Age, 170. The Garrison were forced by famine, to consume all their horses.
1855. Thackeray, Newcomes, I. viii. 141. Whilst his Excellency consumed betel out of a silver box.
1870. E. Peacock, Ralf Skirl., I. 52. Wine and punch had been consumed freely.
† e. To swallow up in destruction. Obs.
1526. Tindale, 1 Cor. xv. 54. Deeth is consumed into victory.
1658. Ussher, Ann., VI. 424. The horses were partly (the ships being broken) consumed in the sea.
d. To wear out by use.
1878. Hooker & Ball, Marocco, 156. The thin slippers universally used by the people are very soon consumed.
4. To take up (time), occupy, spend. Often with the notion of ‘spend wastefully, waste.’
a. 1533. Ld. Berners, Gold. Bk. M. Aurel. (1546), D. In what sciences I haue wasted and consumed my time.
1555. Eden, Decades, 37. Owre men consumed certeyne dayes here very plesauntely.
1759. Robertson, Hist. Scot., I. III. 242. Two years had already been consumed in fruitless negociations.
1827. Hallam, Const. Hist. (1876), I. iii. 156. Mary had now consumed the best years of her life in custody.
1842. Mrs. Carlyle, Lett., I. 181. There are generally three hours consumed in the drive.
1867. Trollope, Chron. Barset, I. xxviii. 244. She then proposed that he should … call upon the squire, and thus consume his time.
5. Rom. Law. (= consumere actionem). To exhaust (a pursuer’s) right of action.
1875. Poste, Gaius, Contents 15. Non-statutory actions … have no power at civil law of consuming or novating a right of action.
Cf. 1880. Muirhead, Gaius, II. 180, note.
6. intr. a. To waste away, decay, rot, perish.
1526. Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W., 1531), 175. To lye vnoccupyed … and so to perysshe, consume and waste.
1611. Bible, Job xiii. 28. Hee, as a rotten thing consumeth. Ibid., Ps. xlix. 14. Their beauty shall consume in the graue.
1632. Lithgow, Trav., VI. 256. An Apple … like to the colour of gold, and within was rotten, and would consume to powder.
1749. Smollett, Regic., V. vii. Alas! thou fading flower How fast thy sweets consume!
† b. To waste away with disease, esp. with ‘consumption’; also, with grief, to pine. Obs.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XIX. xxi. (1495), 876. Those persones whyche done consume and waste.
1535. Coverdale, Ps. vi. 7. For very inwarde grefe, I consume awaye.
1555. Eden, Decades, 53. Fogeda also through the maliciousnes of the veneme consumed and was dryed vp by lyttle and lyttle.
a. 1661. Fuller, Worthies (1840), III. 400. He consumed away of a sudden, dying within a month.
1684. Contempl. State Man, I. iv. (1699), 39. The proud Man grieves and consumes for the Felicity of another.
c. To burn away, become burned to ashes. Also fig. with zeal, fever, etc.
1591. Shaks., 1 Hen. VI., V. iv. 92. Breake thou in peeces, and consume to ashes.
1702. Pope, Sapho, 12. While I consume with more than Ætna’s fires!
1794. J. Hutton, Philos. Light, etc., 156. Were this body then to consume by itself, as it does when associated with other burning coals.
1823. De Quincey, Dice, Wks. 1859, XI. 294. A great fire, in the midst of which was consuming the old black book.
† 7. The subjunctive was formerly used in angry imprecations: cf. confound you! hang you! and the like. (See CONSUMED 3, CONSUMEDLY.] Obs.
1756. W. Toldervy, Hist. Two Orphans, III. 187. Consume you, cried he; you have been mumping about … more than three weeks; go, take yourself away.
