consolidation
Pluralconsolidations (some meanings)
- 1The act or process of making something firm and secure or of uniting separate parts into a whole, or the state that results.
A period of consolidation followed the company's rapid expansion overseas.
The treaty marked the consolidation of the empire's eastern border.
Similarcombination, solidification
Oppositefragmentation
Note
Solid sits inside the word, from Latin cōnsolidātiō and its verb cōnsolidō, and that explains its double reach: making firm and making one. Each near-synonym keeps only half of it, since solidification is the firming and combination the joining. As a mass noun it names an ongoing process; with a or in the plural it names one particular act of it.
- 2The combining of several separate actions into a single one.
The judge approved the consolidation of the four lawsuits, so the claims will be heard together.
Consolidation of the separate safety checks into one inspection cut the factory's delays in half.
Similarcombination, merging, amalgamation
Oppositeseparation
- 3A solidification into a firm, dense mass, usually said of normally air-filled lung tissue that has swollen or hardened.
The chest CT revealed patchy consolidation in both lower lobes.
The ultrasound picked up several small consolidations along the edge of the lung.
Note
In imaging and pathology the word marks lung that should hold air but has filled in, so the tissue reads as solid; the absence of alveolar air is what defines it. It works as a mass noun (multilobular consolidation) and as a count noun for separate patches, as in consolidations adjacent to the pleural line. Here the idea of making firm is taken literally.
Practice
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Origin
From Latin cōnsolidātiō (cōnsolidātiōnem), which comes from cōnsolidō.