n. 1. One who, or that which, consumes; as, the consumer of food. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. (Econ.) the person or organization that uses some item of commerce or service in its own acitities, as opposed to reselling the item or including it as part of another item for resale; -- called also the end user. [ PJC ]

n. An index of the cost of all goods and services to a typical consumer, calculated and published by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics; abbreviated CPI, and usually referred to by that acronym. The Bureau maintains several indices for different groups of consumers, but the most commonly referred to is the index for “All urban consumers”, called the CPI-U. The increase of this value each year is one measure of monetary inflation.
Syn. -- CPI, cost-of-living index. [ WordNet 1.5 ]

☞ For a table of values from the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the CPI over time, see CPI-U from 1913 to 1998. [ PJC ]

(Polit. Econ.) Economic goods that directly satisfy human wants or desires, such as food, clothes, pictures, etc.; -- called also consumption goods, or goods of the first order, and opposed to producer's goods. [ Webster 1913 Suppl. ]

. (Polit. econ.) The excess that a purchaser would be willing to pay for a commodity over that he does pay, rather than go without the commodity; -- called also
consumer's rent.

The price which a person pays for a thing can never exceed, and seldom comes up to, that which he would be willing to pay rather than go without it. . . . The excess of the price which he would be willing to pay rather than go without it, over that which he actually does pay, is the economic measure of this surplus satisfaction. It has some analogies to a rent; but is perhaps best called simply consumer's surplus. Alfred Marshall. [ Webster 1913 Suppl. ]