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Serving to consummate; completing. "The final, the consummative procedure of philosophy." Sir W. Hamilton.

The act or process of consuming by use, waste, etc.; decay; destruction. Every new advance of the price to the consumer is a new incentive to him to retrench the quality of his consumption. Burke.

Of or pertaining to consumption; having the quality of consuming, or dissipating; destructive; wasting. It [prayer] is not consumptive or our time. Sharp. A long consumptive war. Addison.

In a way tending to or indication consumption. Beddoes.

A state of being consumptive, or a tendency to a consumption.

Wasting away gradually. Darwin. - Con*ta*bes"cence, n.

The plane between two adjacent bodies of dissimilar rock. Raymond. Contact level, a delicate level so pivoted as to tilt when two parts of a measuring apparatus come into contact with each other; -- used in precise determinations of lengths and in the accurate graduation of instruments.

Act of touching. [Obs.]

The transmission of a disease from one person to another, by direct or indirect contact.

Affected by contagion.

One who believes in the contagious character of certain diseases, as of yellow fever.

Communicable by contact, by a virus, or by a bodily exhalation; catching; as, a contagious disease.

A disease communicable by contact with a patient suffering from it, or with some secretion of, or object touched by, such a patient. Most such diseases have already been proved to be germ diseases, and their communicability depends on the transmission of the living germs. Many germ diseases are not contagious, some sp…

In a contagious manner.

Quality of being contagious.

Contagion; contagious matter. "Contagium of measles." Tyndall.

mprise; to include; to inclose; to hold. Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens can not contain thee; how much less this house! 2 Chron. vi. 18. When that this body did contain a spirit. Shak. What thy stores contain bring forth. Milton.

Capable of being contained or comprised. Boyle.

A container.

One who, or that which, contains.