Noun

(en noun)

One who, or that which, consumes.

* {{quote-book, year=2006, author=

, title=Internal Combustion , chapter=2 citation , passage=But through the oligopoly, charcoal fuel proliferated throughout London's trades and industries. By the 1200s, brewers and bakers, tilemakers, glassblowers, pottery producers, and a range of other craftsmen all became hour-to-hour consumers of charcoal.}}

(economics) someone who trades money for goods as an individual.

This new system favours the consumer over the producer.

(biology) an organism that uses other organisms for food in order to gain energy.

Noun

(en noun)

One who protects or supports; a defender.

* Shakespeare

patron of my life and liberty

* Spenser

the patron of true holiness

A regular customer, as of a certain store or restaurant.

This car park is for patrons only.

A property owner who hires a contractor for construction works.

An influential, wealthy person who supported an artist, craftsman, a scholar or a noble.

(historical, Roman antiquity) A master who had freed his slave but still retained some paternal rights over him.

An advocate or pleader.

* Macaulay

Let him who works the client wrong / Beware the patron' s ire.

(UK, ecclestiastical) One who has gift and disposition of a benefice.

(nautical) A padrone.