consortium
Americannoun
plural
consortia-
a combination of financial institutions, capitalists, etc., for carrying into effect some financial operation requiring large resources of capital.
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any association, partnership, or union.
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Law. the legal right of partners in a marriage to companionship and conjugal intercourse with each other.
In a wrongful death action the surviving spouse commonly seeks damages for loss of consortium.
noun
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an association of financiers, companies, etc, esp one formed for a particular purpose
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law the right of husband or wife to the company, assistance, and affection of the other
Other Word Forms
- consortial adjective
Etymology
Origin of consortium
1820–30; < Latin: partnership, equivalent to consort- consort + -ium -ium
Explanation
Consortium is a fancy word for a group you form for an enterprise beyond what any one member could do alone. All the grocery stores in your neighborhood might form a consortium for the promotion of local strawberries. Consortium comes from the verb consort, which means "to accompany or associate." Consortium used to mean "fellowship, participation, society," but these days you're more likely to hear consortium for an association of different institutions like schools or companies than, say, a consortium of philosophical frog lovers. Still, consortiums usually preserve the ideals of fellowship, with every member institution chipping in to reach a common goal.
Vocabulary lists containing consortium
The Boys in the Boat
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"Simon's Saga," Vocabulary from Episode 25
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The Gene
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Collins was a founder and chairman of C-Span, chaired industry research consortium CableLabs and after retirement served as lead director for the Comcast board.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 16, 2026
Arise Capital Partners, a consortium led by David Storch, was named preferred bidder last month after a previous takeover of the administration-hit club fell through.
From BBC • Apr. 15, 2026
STOCKHOLM—Green steel startup Stegra has secured $1.65 billion in new funding from a consortium led by Sweden’s prominent Wallenberg family, allowing it to complete construction of its new steel plant.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 14, 2026
Lee said cybersecurity companies CrowdStrike and Palo Alto Networks, which are two of the consortium of companies Anthropic is working with for the Mythos preview, stand to benefit from access to Mythos.
From MarketWatch • Apr. 13, 2026
Rabi stitched together the new lab’s sponsoring consortium, known as Associated Universities, from nine large Eastern research institutions that would have been hard pressed to compete individually in the multimillion-dollar world of postwar high-energy physics.*
From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
