consolidation

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English consolidacioun,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Late Latin cōnsolidātiō (“a making firm”), partly through Old French consolidation,^{[2][5][6][7][8]} the noun of action from cōnsolidō (“to make firm, consolidate”),^[3][8][7] formed from com- (“with, together”) and solidō (“to make solid”), from solidus (“firm, whole”), from Proto-Indo-European *sol- (“whole”).^[3] The French word is recorded in the 16th century.^[8] It is the noun of consolidate.^[9][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

In surgery, the healing and closing up of wounds and the knitting of broken bones: about 1400, in the Middle English translation of Lanfranc's Cirurgie.^[2][8][3]

Semantic evolution

The surgical sense went out of use in the early 17th century,^[8] as the word took on the general sense of making something solid or compact (1603) and, figuratively, of making something firm or strong (1611).^[8][6] The sense "the uniting of parts into one whole" is recorded from the 1670s, in Matthew Hale.^[8][3] Johnson (1755) gave the uniting into a solid mass, the annexing of one bill in Parliament to another, and a legal sense of combining.^[9] Specific uses multiplied: the union of two benefices (1511), the combining of bills or statutes into one (1721), the merging of public debts or revenues (1785), the joining of lawsuits (1817), and in the United States a company formed by merging several (1882).^[8] In medicine it is the solidifying of an infected lung,^[4] in geology the hardening of a loose deposit into rock, and in psychology the fixing of a memory in the brain.^[10]

Timeline

• c. 1400 – the healing of wounds and knitting of bones (obsolete by 1615).^[8][2]
• 1511 – the uniting of two benefices or offices.^[8]
• 1603 – the making of something solid or compact.^[8]
• 1611 – figurative, a strengthening or confirming.^[8]
• 1670s – the combining of parts into a single whole.^[8][3]
• 1721 – the combining of several acts or statutes into one.^[8]
• 1785 – finance, the combining of revenues or debts into one fund or stock.^[8]
• 1817 – law, the merging of two or more actions by a court.^[8]
• 1882 – a company formed by merging several (U.S.).^[8]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. The act of combining several things into a single, more effective whole, or the state of being combined: The consolidation of the two branches saved the bank money.
2. The strengthening of a position, power or organization: a period of consolidation after rapid growth.
3. The process of becoming firm or solid.
4. (law) The combining of two or more actions at law, or of several acts into one statute.
5. (geology) The process by which loose sediment is pressed and cemented into hard rock.
6. (medicine) The change of a lung from its normal spongy state to a solid one, as in pneumonia.
7. (psychology) The process in the brain that makes a memory lasting.

Word family

• consolidative
• nonconsolidation
• preconsolidation
• unconsolidation

Related words

• consolidate
• consols
• solid
• solidarity

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins