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Acquire vs Consume - What's the difference?

acquire | consume | Related terms |

In transitive terms the difference between acquire and consume

is that acquire is to gain, usually by one's own exertions; to get as one's own, as, to acquire a title, riches, knowledge, skill, good or bad habits while consume is to destroy completely.

acquire

English

Verb

(acquir)
  • To get.
  • To gain, usually by one's own exertions; to get as one's own, as, to acquire a title, riches, knowledge, skill, good or bad habits.
  • * (Isaac Barrow) (1630-1677)
  • No virtue is acquired in an instant, but step by step.
  • * (William Blackstone) (1723-1780)
  • Descent is the title whereby a man, on the death of his ancestor, acquires his estate, by right of representation, as his heir at law.
  • *{{quote-book, year=1922, author=(Michael Arlen), chapter=3/19/2, title= “Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days
  • , passage=Ivor had acquired more than a mile of fishing rights with the house?; he was not at all a good fisherman, but one must do something?; one generally, however, banged a ball with a squash-racket against a wall.}}

    Synonyms

    * attain, earn, gain, obtain, procure, secure, win

    Derived terms

    * acquired taste

    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