The act of consuming; waste; destruction by burning, eating, devouring, scattering, dissipation, slow decay, or by passing away, as time; as the consumption of fuel, of food, of commodities or estate, of time.

The state of being wasted, or diminished. Etna and Vesuvius have not suffered any considerable diminution or consumption.

In medicine, a wasting of flesh; a gradual decay or diminution of the body; a word of extensive signification. But particularly, the disease called phthisis pulmonalis, pulmonic consumption, a disease seated in the lungs, attended with hectic fever, cough.