consumed

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of consume.

   The flames consumed everything in their path before the crews arrived.

   By noon the hikers had consumed most of their food and water.

   Note

   One spelling does double duty here. As a simple past it stands alone (the flames consumed the barn). As a participle it follows have or be (the barn was consumed). In the passive, by names whatever did the burning, eating or occupying. When with follows instead, the word has usually become the adjective of overwhelming feeling. Nearly every use is transitive, since the old intransitive meaning, to waste away, is obsolete.

2. 2
   adjective

   Wholly filled with or giving off something, especially a powerful emotion or desire that dominates the person feeling it.

   Like a fire that has taken over a whole building, leaving room for nothing else.

   The young writer was consumed with ambition and worked through every night.

   Grief left her utterly consumed, unable to think of anything else for months.

   Similarobsessed, absorbed, eaten, overwhelmed, possessed

   Note

   The verb's sense of taking over someone's thoughts settles here into a lasting state, so it pairs naturally with feelings: consumed with hatred, with ambition, with grief. The preposition is with, and it names whatever fills the person. Because the state is already total, the adjective is not compared. Nobody is more consumed, so emphasis comes from adverbs like utterly or wholly. Contrast the past forms of consume, where the word means used up or destroyed.

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