consciousness
KON-shuhs-nis
/ˈkɒn.ʃəs.nəs/
The state of being aware of and responsive to one's environment, thoughts, and feelings.
Encompasses both waking sensory awareness and inner mental reflection.
The story behind the word. Derived from Latin 'conscius', formed from 'com-' (together) and 'scire' (to know). Originally, it meant sharing secret knowledge with someone else, before evolving in English to mean internal self-knowledge or general awareness.
Word relationships
- awareness: 'Awareness' can refer to knowing a specific fact, while 'consciousness' implies the broader state of subjective experience.
- unconsciousness: The complete lack of sensory awareness and mental activity.
Commonly confused with
- conscience: Conscience is your moral compass regarding right and wrong; consciousness is your state of awareness.
Word family
- conscious (adjective): Aware of and responding to one's surroundings.
- subconscious (noun): Mental activity lying just below the threshold of conscious awareness.
Collocations
- stream of consciousness
- altered state of consciousness
- regain consciousness
- lose consciousness
Idioms & expressions
- raise awareness/consciousness
Example sentences
- "Neuroscientists are still striving to identify the precise neural correlates of human consciousness." Neuroscience
- "The patient slowly regained consciousness after the anesthesia wore off." General Reading
Memory hook
Con-SCIENCE-ness: You 'know' (science = scire) that you exist together with your thoughts. Knowing together with yourself.
When not to use
Do not confuse with 'conscience' (the moral sense of right and wrong).
Fun facts
- Philosopher Thomas Nagel famously argued that an organism has consciousness if and only if 'there is something it is like to be that organism'.
Related words
Explore more words
subconscious, attentiveness, mindfulness, introspective, subjectivity
Also appears in
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