Noun
The act or process of consuming by use, waste, etc.; decay; destruction.
The state or process of being consumed, wasted, or diminished; waste; diminution; loss; decay.
A progressive wasting away of the body; esp., that form of wasting, attendant upon pulmonary phthisis and associated with cough, spitting of blood, hectic fever, etc.; pulmonary phthisis; -- called also pulmonary consumption.
Source: Webster's dictionaryConspicuous consumption of valuable goods is a means of reputability to the gentleman of leisure. Thorstein Veblen
Thanksgiving is a typically American holiday... The lavish meal is a symbol of the fact that abundant consumption is the result and reward of production. Ayn Rand
Consumption may be regarded as negative production. Alfred Marshall
Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to, only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer. Adam Smith
Tourism, human circulation considered as consumption ... is fundamentally nothing more than the leisure of going to see what has become banal. Guy Debord
Books constitute capital. A library book lasts as long as a house, for hundreds of years. It is not, then, an article of mere consumption but fairly of capital, and often in the case of professional men, setting out in life, it is their only capital. Thomas Jefferson