Other forms: consulting, consulted, consults
To consult is to go to an expert for advice before deciding. Consult a doctor, consult a lawyer, consult the manual.
It takes a direct object — consult a specialist, consult the map. Consult with somebody means to discuss rather than to ask, which is a real difference in workplaces: consulting staff and consulting with staff are not the same promise. Note consultation, both the meeting and the formal process of asking people's views; consultant, which in British medicine is the most senior hospital doctor; and consultancy.
1verbconsultTo go to an expert for advice.
“She consulted three surveyors and believed the cheapest.”
2verblookTo look something up in a source.
“Nobody consulted the manual until it was far too late.”
consult is a seeking of advice.
Latin consultare is the frequentative of consulere, to take counsel — the same verb behind counsel and consul. To consult is to keep taking advice, which the -tare ending makes repeated rather than single.
Proto-Indo-European
*selh₁-
Latin
cōnsultum
Middle French
consulter
English, today
consult
From Middle French consulter, from Latin cōnsultum, from cōnsultus, from cōnsulō.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA