[f. as prec. + -ING2.]
1. Burning up, wasting, destroying, etc.
1535. Coverdale, Ps. xvii[i]. 8. A consumynge fyre.
1578. Lyte, Dodoens, I. lvi. 83. Fretting and consuming sores.
1666. Dryden, Ann. Mirab., Ded. (Globe), 37. A consuming pestilence, and a more consuming fire.
1863. Kinglake, Crimea (1876), I. xvii. 378. The consuming evil of a vast standing army.
2. Enduring consumption, wasting, or combustion.
1699. Capt. Cowley, Voy (1729), 14. A very sick ship, no man being free from the scurvy, and in a consuming condition.
1821. Shelley, Hellas, 507. Our … path … Was beacon’d By our consuming transports.
Hence Consumingly adv., Consumingness.
a. 1542. Wyatt, in Tottel’s Misc. (Arb.), 59. I dye, though not incontinent, By processe, yet consumingly.
1662. J. Sparrow, trans. Behmen’s Rem. Wks., Consid. upon Stiefel, 23. The Soul … giveth forth out of the Consumingnesse … the High Light.
1683. Pordage, Myst. Div., 118. This Fire-essence … in its Fierceness, Consumingness, and self-elevation.
1875. McCosh, Scott. Philos., xvii. 110. He is consumingly earnest in visiting.
