Meaning & use
consumer
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Meanings
nouncountablebusiness
A person who buys products or pays for services to use them personally.
Grammar: Often used before another noun: consumer rights, consumer prices.
Patterns
- a consumer of something
- consumer demand
Consumers are paying more for groceries this year.
The law protects consumers from false advertising.
The company surveyed thousands of consumers about the new phone.
nouncountablebiology
A living thing that gets its energy by eating plants or other animals.
Grammar: Used in biology and ecology, in contrast to producer.
Patterns
- primary consumer
- secondary consumer
A rabbit is a primary consumer because it eats plants.
Secondary consumers, such as foxes, feed on herbivores.
Every food chain begins with producers and ends with top consumers.
nouncountable
Something or someone that uses up a resource such as energy, water, or data.
Grammar: Takes of or a modifier: a heavy consumer of power.
Patterns
- a consumer of something
Old refrigerators are big consumers of electricity.
He is a voracious consumer of news.
Word forms
| plural | consumers |
|---|
Common combinations
- consumer rights
- Consumer rights let you return faulty goods.
- consumer confidence
- Consumer confidence fell after the price rises.
- consumer spending
- Consumer spending rises before the holidays.
- consumer goods
- Washing machines are durable consumer goods.
- consumer protection
- A consumer protection agency handles scams.
Synonyms and how they differ
- customer
- Customer is someone who buys from a particular seller, while consumer is a general term for any end user.
- buyer
- Buyer stresses the act of purchasing, not whether the person uses the product.
- shopper
- Shopper describes someone currently browsing or buying in a store.
- user
- User refers to someone who uses something, even without paying for it.
Opposites
Word family
- consume verb
- to use up, eat, or drink
- consumption noun
- the amount used or eaten
- consumerism noun
- a social focus on buying goods
- consumable adjective
- able to be eaten or used up
Commonly confused: consumer or customer?
consumer vs customer
A customer deals with one shop or business. A consumer is anyone who ends up using the product, even if someone else bought it.
Practice
In a food chain, a rabbit that eats grass is classed as a ______.
Choose one answer.
A rabbit gets energy by eating plants, so it is a consumer. Grass is the producer, and a decomposer breaks down dead matter.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “consumer”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.