[f. as prec. + -ING2.]
1. Agreeing or giving consent (to a proposal or course of action; formerly, also, to an opinion).
a. 1300. Cursor M., 28401 (Cott.). I was consentand to þair dede.
c. 1374. Chaucer, Boeth., I. iv. 18. He was knowyng and consentyng of a coniuracioun maked aȝeins hym.
1382. Wyclif, Acts vii. 60. Forsoth Saul was consentynge [so Rhem. & 1611] to his deeth.
1578. Banister, Hist. Man, I. 14. The wise are alwayes consenting vnto truth.
1601. Shaks., All’s Well, III. ii. 80. ’Tis but the boldnesse of his hand haply, which his heart was not consenting too.
1761. Frances Sheridan, S. Bidulph, I. 144. She must not know that I was consenting to this marriage.
1869. Freeman, Norm. Conq. (1876), III. xi. 57. A step to which Northumberland had practically not been a consenting party.
fig. 1803. Wordsw., To Highland Girl, 3. Twice seven consenting years have shed Their utmost bounty on thy head.
2. Agreeing together (in opinion or purport); of one mind, unanimous.
1589. Puttenham, Eng. Poesie, III. xix. (Arb.), 223. Sinonimia, as who would say, like or consenting names.
1651. Hobbes, Leviath., II. xviii. 90. [They have] by consenting voices declared a Soveraigne.
1741. Middleton, Cicero, II. XII. 518. The consenting praise of all honest men.
1865. M. Arnold, Ess. Crit., i. (1875), 416. The clear consenting voice of all his contemporaries.
b. Agreeing, conformable.
1878. G. Macdonald, Phantastes, II. xx. 121. Hammering one part of it to a consenting shape with the rest.
