Literary notes about Consummate (AI summary)
The term "consummate" is deployed across literature to evoke a sense of absolute perfection or mastery, whether referring to skills, character traits, or completed actions. Authors use it to exalt a person’s refined abilities or comprehensive qualities, as when a figure is described as a "consummate master of intrigue" or "consummate general" to underscore expertise and unparalleled competence ([1], [2]). At times it characterizes the fullness of an achievement, such as in finalizing a union or fulfilling a destiny, as well as to denote complete, sometimes even disconcerting, refinement in manners or actions ([3], [4]). Equally, the word can imbue a description with decorative flair in both high art and everyday conduct, from the "consummate skill" in craft or warfare to attributes of generosity and cool composure ([5], [6]).
- It would scarcely be unjust to call him simply astonishingly clever, or simply a consummate master of intrigue.
— from Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth by A. C. Bradley - i , 75 ; consummate general, i , 108 ; not always scrupulous in his methods, iii , 49 ; his valuation of character, ii , 71 .
— from De Officiis by Marcus Tullius Cicero - Afterwards he crowned them both kinge and Queene of Asia, and with royall pompe and triumphe, the desired mariage was consummate.
— from The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America by Thomas Jefferson - I do but stay till your marriage be consummate, and then go I toward Arragon.
— from Much Ado about Nothing by William Shakespeare - The Italian company arrived from Dresden, and fascinated the Leipzig audience by their consummate mastery of their art.
— from My Life — Volume 1 by Richard Wagner - "Certainly not," replied the Professor with consummate coolness.
— from A Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne
