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A consumptive, in older English, was someone with tuberculosis — the lung disease people used to call consumption, because it seemed to eat the body away. Novels and doctors’ notes from the 1800s use it this way: a pale consumptive, a consumptive cough. It can be a noun (the person) or an adjective (describing the illness or the patient). Nobody in a modern hospital says this; they say tuberculosis or TB. The word now belongs to history, literature, and period drama. It is not a kind way to talk about someone who is ill today, and it is not an insult in those old books — it was just the name they had.
肺結核患者（舊稱；今多說結核病／肺結核）
組成From Middle English consumptive, from Latin cōnsūmptus (the past form of cōnsūmō, “to use up”) + -ive. The disease was thought to consume the body, so the person was called consumptive. Surface pieces: con- + Latin sūmptus + -ive.
同家族的字
- consumethe verb: to use up; the disease was imagined as eating the body
- consumptionthe old name for tuberculosis, and also the using-up of something
原始詞典資料4 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
consumptiveadj/kənˈsʌmptɪv/
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Having a tendency to consume; dissipating; destructive; wasteful.
- a long consumptive war
- [O]n ſome occaſions, he diſplayed all his fund of good humour, vvith a vievv to beguile her ſorrovv; he importuned her to give him the pleasure of ’ſquiring her to ſome place of innocent entertainment; and, finally, inſiſted upon her accepting a pecuniary reinforcement to her finances, vvhich he knevv to be in a moſt conſumptive condition.
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Of or relating to consumption.
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medicinepathologysciencesRelating to pulmonary tuberculosis.
- consumptive cough
- The lean, conſumptive, wench, with coughs decay'd, / Is call'd a pretty, tight, and ſlender maid.
consumptivenoun/kənˈsʌmptɪv/
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A person suffering from pulmonary tuberculosis.
- The consumptive has managed to shake the servant from her side and walks alone, striving to make it look easy.
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。