consultant
Americannoun
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a person who gives professional or expert advice.
a consultant on business methods.
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a person who consults someone or something.
noun
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a senior physician, esp a specialist, who is asked to confirm a diagnosis or treatment or to provide an opinion
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a physician or surgeon holding the highest appointment in a particular branch of medicine or surgery in a hospital
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a specialist who gives expert advice or information
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a person who asks advice in a consultation
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of consultant
First recorded in 1690–1700; from French or directly from Latin consultant- (stem of consultāns, present participle of consultāre “to take counsel”); see origin at consult, -ant
Explanation
A consultant is an expert in a particular field. Sometimes a business will rely on the guidance of a consultant to help change its image. How did the word consultant come about? Consult dates to the 1520s and comes from the French word consultare, meaning "take advice of." The related noun consultant, to mean someone qualified to give advice, is believed to have first appeared in an 1893 Sherlock Holmes story.
Vocabulary lists containing consultant
The Westing Game
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The Lemonade War
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"Principles of Business," Vocabulary from Chapter 6
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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.
Platner, who had no political experience, was recruited into the race by Daniel Moraff, an Ivy League–educated consultant who served as a headhunter for progressive and unconventional Democratic candidates.
From Slate • Jul. 11, 2026
Jack Klein, a Trump voter and environmental consultant in Sugar Land, Texas, near Houston, said Trump’s performance “exceeds my highest expectations.”
From The Wall Street Journal • Jul. 11, 2026
“Clients in this realm want volatility,” Matt Lamb, a portfolio consultant for GraniteShares, said of leveraged ETFs in a phone interview with MarketWatch.
From MarketWatch • Jul. 9, 2026
Women may also be marginally more vulnerable to heatwave-related death than men, though more evidence is needed, said Dr Cat Pinho-Gomes, an academic public health consultant at UCL's Institute for Global Health.
From BBC • Jul. 8, 2026
After making a number of telephone calls, I finally located Mr. Jones in a town in England, where today he is working as a veterinary consultant.
From "The Hot Zone" by Richard Preston
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.
