[f. CONSUME v.1]
1. He who or that which consumes, wastes, squanders, or destroys.
1535. Coverdale, Mal. iii. 11. I shal reproue the consumer for youre sakes.
1679. Penn, Addr. Prot., 24. It is a great Consumer of Time.
1825. Lytton, Falkland, 67. Your sleep is not turned … into the very consumer of life.
2. Pol. Econ. One who uses up an article produced, thereby exhausting its exchangeable value: opposed to producer.
1745. De Foe’s Eng. Tradesman (1841), I. Introd. 2. And by the retailer to the last consumer.
1757. Jos. Harris, Coins, 37. All men are in some degree consumers of foreign commodities.
1860. Emerson, Cond. Life, Wealth, Wks. (Bohn), II. 343. Every man is a consumer, and ought to be a producer.
