1. Someone who buys goods or services: Consumers want better and safer products.
2. Someone or something that ingests something, by eating it, drinking it, or using it up.
3. In an ecological community or food chain, an organism that feeds on other organisms, or on materials derived from them.

Consumers include herbivorous and carnivorous animals, which feed on plants and other animals respectively; and also organisms including worms, fungi, and bacteria, that feed on nonliving organic material.