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Accumulate vs Consume - What's the difference?

accumulate | consume |

In transitive terms the difference between accumulate and consume

is that accumulate is to heap up in a mass; to pile up; to collect or bring together; to amass while consume is to destroy completely.

As an adjective accumulate

is collected; accumulated.

accumulate

English

Verb

(accumulat)
  • To heap up in a mass; to pile up; to collect or bring together; to amass.
  • He wishes to accumulate a sum of money.
  • To grow or increase in quantity or number; to increase greatly.
  • * Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates , and men decay. -
  • Synonyms

    * collect * pile up * store * amass * gather * aggregate * heap together * hoard * proliferate

    Adjective

    (-)
  • (poetic, rare) Collected; accumulated.
  • consume

    English

    Verb

    (consum)
  • To use.
  • The power plant consumes 30 tons of coal per hour.
  • To eat.
  • Baby birds consume their own weight in food each day.
  • To completely occupy the thoughts or attention of.
  • Desire consumed him.
  • To destroy completely.
  • The building was consumed by fire.
  • * Shakespeare
  • If he were putting to my house the brand / That shall consume it.
  • * Bible, Matthew vi. 20
  • Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth consume .
  • (obsolete) To waste away slowly.
  • * Shakespeare
  • Therefore, let Benedick, like cover'd fire, / Consume away in sighs.
  • * 1899 , Kate Chopin, The Awakening :
  • He assured her the child was consuming at that moment in the next room.

    Synonyms

    * (use) burn (of energy ), use, use up * (eat) devour, eat, swallow * (occupy) occupy, overcome, take over * (destroy) annihilate, destroy, devastate, eliminate, obliterate, raze (of a building ), wipe out

    Derived terms

    * consumer