The Collaborative International Dictionary
Consist \Con*sist"\ (k[o^]n*s[i^]st"), v. i. [imp. & p. p. Consisted; p. pr. & vb. n. Consisting.] [L. consistere to stand still or firm; con- + sistere to stand, cause to stand, stare to stand: cf. F. consister. See Stand.]
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To stand firm; to be in a fixed or permanent state, as a body composed of parts in union or connection; to hold together; to be; to exist; to subsist; to be supported and maintained.
He is before all things, and by him all things consist.
--Col. i. 17. -
To be composed or made up; -- followed by of.
The land would consist of plains and valleys.
--T. Burnet. -
To have as its substance or character, or as its foundation; to be; -- followed by in.
If their purgation did consist in words.
--Shak.A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.
--Luke xii. 15. -
To be consistent or harmonious; to be in accordance; -- formerly used absolutely, now followed by with.
This was a consisting story.
--Bp. Burnet.Health consists with temperance alone.
--Pope.For orders and degrees Jar not with liberty, but well consist.
--Milton. -
To insist; -- followed by on. [Obs.]
--Shak.Syn: To Consist, Consist of, Consist in.
Usage: The verb consist is employed chiefly for two purposes, which are marked and distinguished by the prepositions used. When we wish to indicate the parts which unite to compose a thing, we use of; as when we say, ``Macaulay's Miscellanies consist chiefly of articles which were first published in the Edinburgh Review.'' When we wish to indicate the true nature of a thing, or that on which it depends, we use in; as, ``There are some artists whose skill consists in a certain manner which they have affected.'' ``Our safety consists in a strict adherence to duty.''
Wiktionary
vb. (en-past of: consist)
Usage examples of "consisted".
They consisted of commandos from Bethulie, Rouxville, and Smithfield, under the orders of Olivier, with those colonials whom they had seduced from their allegiance.
Our military history has largely consisted in our conflicts with France, but Napoleon and all his veterans have never treated us so roughly as these hard-bitten farmers with their ancient theology and their inconveniently modern rifles.
Soon the population of the mining centres became greater than that of the whole Boer community, and consisted mainly of men in the prime of life--men, too, of exceptional intelligence and energy.
These consisted of the 1st Devons, the 1st Liverpools, and the 2nd Gordon Highlanders, with the 1st Gloucesters, the 2nd King's Royal Rifles, and the 2nd Rifle Brigade, reinforced later by the Manchesters.
Our own casualty list consisted of 41 killed and 220 wounded, much the same number as at Talana Hill, the heaviest losses falling upon the Gordon Highlanders and the Imperial Light Horse.
The other was the investment of Kimberley by a force which consisted principally of Freestaters under the command of Wessels and Botha.
Cronje, lurking behind his trenches and his barbed wire entanglements barred Methuen's road to Kimberley, while in the northern part of Cape Colony Gatacre's wearied troops had been defeated and driven by a force which consisted largely of British subjects.
This force consisted of 200 Queenslanders, 100 Canadians (Toronto Company), 40 mounted Munster Fusiliers, a New South Wales Ambulance, and 200 of the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry with one horse battery.
Moving out suddenly and rapidly from Belmont, it struck at the extreme right of the Boer line, which consisted of a laager occupied by the colonial rebels of that part of the country.
The expedition under Babington consisted of the same regiments and the same battery which had covered Pilcher's advance.
During the weeks of waiting, his force consisted of three field batteries, the 74th, 77th, and 79th, some mounted police and irregular horse, the remains of the Royal Irish Rifles and the 2nd Northumberland Fusiliers, the 1st Royal Scots, the Derbyshire regiment, and the Berkshires, the whole amounting to about 5500 men, who had to hold the whole district from Sterkstroom to East London on the coast, with a victorious enemy in front and a disaffected population around.
The storming party consisted of some hundreds of picked volunteers from the Heidelberg (Transvaal) and Harrismith (Free State) contingents, led by de Villiers.
His infantry consisted of the 2nd Berkshires, 1st Royal Irish, 2nd Wiltshires, 2nd Worcesters, 1st Essex, and 1st Yorkshires.
No blame attaches to the gunners for this, as a hill intervened to screen the Boer artillery, which consisted of five big guns and two pom-poms.
The mounted force, upon which most of the work and of the loss fell, consisted of the Diamond Fields Horse, a small number of Cape Police, a company of Mounted Infantry, and a body called the Kimberley Light Horse.