consummation

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   the completion, fulfillment, or culminating result of a process or aim

   The treaty was the consummation of a decade of careful diplomacy.

2. 2
   noun

   the completion of a marriage through sexual intercourse

   The court asked whether consummation of the marriage had occurred.

From Latin consummatio ("completion"), from consummare ("to complete, sum up"), built from con- as an intensive prefix + summa ("sum, total"). The marital sense developed from the legal and religious idea that intercourse completes a marriage.

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