Definition

1. Adjective:

   • Relating to or afflicted with pulmonary tuberculosis: Describes a person, condition, or symptom associated with the disease tuberculosis (TB) of the lungs.
   • Tending to consume or use up resources, often wastefully: Describes something that uses or destroys a resource, such as time, energy, or materials.

2. Noun:

   • A person suffering from pulmonary tuberculosis: An individual afflicted with the disease tuberculosis of the lungs. (Note: This usage is now dated and less common in modern medical contexts.)

Examples of Usage

• Adjective:
  • The doctor recognized the patient's persistent cough as a consumptive symptom.
  • The project's requirements were consumptive of the team's limited budget.
• Noun (dated):
  • In the 19th-century novel, the main character was a consumptive.

Advanced Usage

• The adjective form is often used in formal or technical writing to describe processes that deplete resources.
  • The new manufacturing method is less consumptive of raw materials.
• In historical or literary contexts, the noun form evokes a specific era when tuberculosis was more common and less treatable.

Variants and Related Words

• Consume (verb): To use up (a resource); to eat or drink.
• Consumption (noun):
  • The using up of a resource.
  • An old-fashioned term for the disease pulmonary tuberculosis.
• Non-consumptive (adjective): Not using up or depleting a resource. Often used in environmental contexts (e.g., like recreation).

Synonyms

• Adjective (wasteful): Depleting, draining, exhausting, wasteful.
• Adjective (tubercular): Tuberculous, phthisic (archaic).
• Noun (patient): Tuberculosis patient, TB patient (modern/preferred).

Related Phrases

• Consumptive use: A technical term, especially in law and resource management, referring to the use of a resource (like water) that removes it from the immediate supply (e.g., through evaporation or incorporation into a product).
  • Agricultural irrigation is a major type of consumptive use of water.

Adjective

1. afflicted with or associated with pulmonary tuberculosis
   • a consumptive patient
   • a consumptive cough
2. tending to consume or use often wastefully
   • water suitable for beneficial consumptive uses
   • duties consumptive of time and energy
   • consumptive fires

Noun

1. a person with pulmonary tuberculosis