Consumed

How to spell consumed

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce consumed

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does consumed mean?

1. verbPast tense of consume: used up, ate, drank, or destroyed completely.
2. verbPast participle of consume: wholly absorbed or overwhelmed by a strong feeling.

Consumed in a sentence

• The fire consumed the entire warehouse within an hour.

• She was consumed by guilt for weeks after the accident.

• The engine consumed far more fuel than the manual predicted.

• He was so consumed with jealousy that he could not focus on work.

Where does consumed come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is the past tense of the verb 'consume', which English took from the Latin verb consumere, meaning 'to use up' or 'to take completely'. That verb was built from the prefix con-, used here as an intensifier meaning 'completely', joined to sumere, 'to take', the same root that gives us 'assume', 'presume', and 'resume'. The word arrived in English in the late 1300s by way of Old French, and early uses ranged from wasting away from disease (the source of the old name 'consumption' for tuberculosis) to eating, burning, or wearing something away. Over time the everyday meanings of using up resources and eating or drinking became dominant, alongside the figurative sense of being wholly absorbed by an emotion. The single -s- and single -m- in the modern spelling reflect that Latin sumere, and are worth remembering because the unrelated word 'consummate' doubles both.

How the word is built

• con- (completely, up)
• sum (from Latin sumere: to take)
• -ed (past tense/participle)