# consultant

Pronunciation: say "kuhn-SUL-tuhnt" US/UK /kənˈsʌl.tənt/, AUS /kənˈsɐl.tənt/

## Noun

1. A person or company whose occupation or business is to be consulted for expertise, advice, or services in a particular area or specialty.
   - Simple: A person whose job is to give expert advice or help in a special area.
   - _After leaving the firm, she set up on her own as an independent consultant._
   - _The city hired consultants to evaluate its aging transit system._
2. Someone, or a group, whose advice or opinion is sought.
   - Simple: A person or group that someone asks for advice or an opinion.
   - _On matters of etiquette, her aunt served as the family's unofficial consultant._
   - _The senator treated the retired general as his consultant on military questions._
3. In the UK, a senior hospital-based physician or surgeon who has completed all specialist training and been placed on the specialist register, roughly equivalent to an attending physician in North America. *(Ireland, UK)*
   - Simple: In the UK, a senior hospital doctor who has finished all the training for their special area of medicine.
   - _He was appointed consultant in cardiology at a teaching hospital in Manchester._
   - _NHS waiting lists depend heavily on how many consultants each hospital can recruit._

## Origin

It comes from French consultant, the present participle of consulter, from Latin cōnsultāre ("to deliberate, consult"), a frequentative of cōnsulere ("to consult, consider, ask advice"), formed from com- ("together") plus -sulere, which is of uncertain origin.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/consultant (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).