Emily Dickinson Lexicon

CON-SUMP'TION, n. [L. consumptio. See Consume.]

1. 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, &c.
2. The state of being wasted, or diminished. Etna and Vesuvius have not suffered any considerable diminution or consumption. – Woodward.
3. 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 a hectic fever, cough, &c.