All 3 Uses of
consequence
in
The Awakening, by Kate Chopin
- She answered her husband with friendly evasiveness,—not with any fixed design to mislead him, only because all sense of reality had gone out of her life; she had abandoned herself to Fate, and awaited the consequences with indifference.†
Chpt 35consequences = results
- Nothing else in the world is of any consequence.†
Chpt 36 *consequence = importance
- And Nature takes no account of moral consequences, of arbitrary conditions which we create, and which we feel obliged to maintain at any cost.†
Chpt 38 *consequences = results
Definitions:
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(1)
(consequence as in: a direct consequence of) a result of something (often an undesired side effect)
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(2)
(consequence as in: of little consequence) importance or relevance
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(3)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) meaning too rare to warrant focus:
In classic literature, consequential may refer to someone with too much feeling of self-importance as when Dickens wrote "Because he's a proud, haughty, consequential, turned-up-nosed peacock."
Self-consequence was used in a similar manner, but is more easily understood by modern readers since important is one of the modern senses of consequence.
Another classic sense of consequent that is similar to importance or significance refers to "material wealth or prominence" as when Jane Austen wrote: "They had each had money, but their marriages had made a material difference in their degree of consequence."