Definition of "consideration"

consideration

/kənˌsɪdəˈɹeɪʃən/

noun
countable and uncountable, plural considerations
1. The thought process of considering, of taking multiple or specified factors into account (with of being the main corresponding adposition).
  Quotations
  In consideration of the day and hour of my birth, it was declared by the nurse, and by some sage women in the neighbourhood who had taken a lively interest in me several months before there was any possibility of our becoming personally acquainted, first, that I was destined to be unlucky in life; and secondly, that I was privileged to see ghosts and spirits; both these gifts inevitably attaching, as they believed, to all unlucky infants of either gender, born towards the small hours on a Friday night.
  1850, Charles Dickens, chapter 1, in David Copperfield
2. Something considered as a reason or ground for a (possible) decision.
3. The tendency to consider others.
4. A payment or other recompense for something done.
  Quotations
  A Malay here is proving helpful — Syed Omar, who says he's descended from Mohammed — and he's going to take us around. For a consideration, of course, but what the hell!
  1959, Anthony Burgess, Beds in the East (The Malayan Trilogy), published 1972, page 616
5. (law) A matter of inducement for something promised; something valuable given as recompense for a promise, which causes the promise to become binding as a contract.
  Quotations
  Consideration is an intention to create legal relations.
  2007, Wikipedia:Contract
  In consideration of the performance of B's obligations hereunder, A hereby grants to B's personal license.
  2008, A contract
6. Importance, claim to notice, regard.
  Quotations
  [...] settled down on a small property he had near Quimper to live for the rest of his days in peace; but the failure of an attorney left him suddenly penniless, and neither he nor his wife was willing to live in penury where they had enjoyed consideration.
  1919, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, “chapter 54”, in The Moon and Sixpence, [New York, N.Y.]: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers […]