absume
v.v. to drink or eat something. This is an old word that people used in the past to talk about consuming food and drink.
v. to drink or consume; to ingest.
The travelers absume their meals slowly.
In the old manuscript, the knight is described as absuming wine with his companions after the feast.
The poet uses the archaic verb absume to evoke a sense of medieval ritual, where the act of consumption is treated with great ceremony and significance.
Learned borrowing from Latin absūmō (“diminish”); formed from ab (“from, away from”) + sūmō (“take”).
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Last updated May 18, 2026