consummate

Etymology

The adjective is inherited from Middle English consummat,^[2][3] borrowed from Latin cōnsummātus (“lacking nothing, complete, perfect”),^[4][5][6][7] the past participle of cōnsummō (“to add up, complete, finish, perfect”),^[4][3][8] from com- and summa (“sum, total”),^[4][5][9] the feminine of summus (“highest, supreme”).^[8][5] The verb has the same Latin source, through its past participial stem,^[4][10] and Middle English had consummaten,^[11][9] but Barnhart derives the verb from the adjective.^[3] The Latin verb took on the sense of completing a marriage by sexual intercourse in post-classical use, from the late 13th century in British sources.^[4] Spellings with -o- in the second syllable were probably influenced by Middle French consommer.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Completed, perfected, fully accomplished, in a past participle use: 1447, in Osbern Bokenham's Lives of Saints.^[4][3] Etymonline dates the adjective about 1500 and the verb to the mid 15th century,^[5] but the OED has the adjective first and the verb from about 1525.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The word first served as a participle, "completed", and that use lasted until 1832.^[4] As a true adjective it moved from "complete, finished" to "of the highest degree, supreme", used of a quality or state before 1530,^[4] and then to people: "fully accomplished, supremely skilled" from 1603,^[4] or the 1640s in Etymonline.^[5] Johnson (1755) defined it simply as "complete; perfect; finished", and also quoted Shakespeare's "'till your marriage be consummate".^[12] Before a noun it can also be a mere intensifier, as in Collins's "a consummate fool".^[13] Merriam-Webster Unabridged illustrates the skilled sense with Stevenson's "consummate actor" and the same sense applied to a "consummate scoundrel" in Butler's Erewhon.^[2] The verb's first English record concerns marriage, about 1525,^[4] with "to bring to completion, finish" in Palsgrave in 1530.^[4][3][2] "To make perfect" follows in 1581,^[4] and the marital verb has since widened to giving sexual expression to love or a relationship outside marriage.^[4]

Timeline

• 1447 – adjective, completed, fully accomplished (obsolete by 1832).^[4][3]
• before 1500 – adjective, concluding, final (obsolete and rare).^[4][10]
• c. 1525 – verb, to complete a marriage by sexual intercourse.^[4] Etymonline dates this to the 1530s.^[5]
• before 1527 – adjective, of a thing: complete, finished.^[4]
• before 1530 – adjective, of a quality or state: of the highest degree, supreme.^[4]
• 1530 – verb, to bring to completion, carry out, in Palsgrave.^[4][3][2]
• 1581 – verb, to make perfect; intransitive, to attain perfection.^[4]
• 1603 – adjective, of a person: supremely skilled.^[4] Etymonline has the 1640s.^[5]
• 1697 – verb, intransitive, to complete a marriage by sexual intercourse, in Vanbrugh.^[4]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Supremely skilled and accomplished: a consummate violinist.^[13][2][4]
2. Of the highest degree; complete, utter: She handled the talks with consummate tact.^[13][4][10]
3. (archaic, rare) Of a thing: complete, finished.^[4][10]

Verb

1. To bring to completion; to finish or carry out: The two firms consummated the sale in June.^[13][2][4]
2. To complete a marriage by sexual intercourse; also, to have sexual intercourse.^[13][9][4]
3. To make perfect; to fulfil.^[13][4][14]
4. Intransitive: to attain perfection or come to fruition.^[4][10]

Word family

• consummately
• consummator
• consummative
• unconsummated
• consummatory

Related words

• consummation
• sum
• summit
• consommé

Usage notes

The verb was once stressed on the second syllable, and dictionaries list that pronunciation until the late 19th century; since the 20th century they record only first-syllable stress.^[4] The adjective still has both stress positions.^[4][13] The /j/ of British /ˈkɒnsjʊmət/ seems to be first recorded in 1967, in the 13th edition of Daniel Jones's English Pronouncing Dictionary.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ 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)
12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ a b c d e f g Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House