consciousness

American  

[kon-shuhs-nis] / ˈkɒn ʃəs nɪs /

noun

• consciousnesses
  plural

1. the state of being conscious; awareness of one's own existence, sensations, thoughts, surroundings, etc.

2. the thoughts and feelings, collectively, of an individual or of an aggregate of people.

   the moral consciousness of a nation.

3. full activity of the mind and senses, as in waking life.

   to regain consciousness after fainting.

4. awareness of something for what it is; internal knowledge.

   consciousness of wrongdoing.

5. concern, interest, or acute awareness.

   class consciousness.

6. the mental activity of which a person is aware as contrasted with unconscious mental processes.

7. Philosophy. the mind or the mental faculties as characterized by thought, feelings, and volition.

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idioms

1. raise one's consciousness, to increase one's awareness and understanding of one's own needs, behavior, attitudes, etc., especially as a member of a particular social or political group.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• underconsciousness
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• consciousnesses
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of consciousness

First recorded in 1625–35; conscious + -ness

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Explanation

When you are awake and aware of your surroundings, that's consciousness. There are different types of consciousness, including social consciousness, being aware of injustices in society. The early Latin word conscius meant "with knowing," but it meant a shared knowledge, a meaning that was retained through the 16th Century. John Locke was the first to describe consciousness in relation to the individual, referring to it as “the perception of what passes in a man’s own mind." If you lose consciousness during the performance, we'll wake you up with some smelling salts!

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

consciousness consciousnesses

What makes the story sing is the author’s ability to evoke the consciousness of an intelligent person in decline.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 15, 2026

The findings, published in the journal Nature, challenge traditional assumptions about the relationship between consciousness and thinking.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 15, 2026

She was 59 when she collapsed during a Christmas holiday in Spain, lost consciousness, stopped breathing and had no pulse or heartbeat after suffering a cardiac arrest.

From BBC ● Oct. 13, 2026

As his latest book ‘The Radiance’ blurs the lines between memory and invention, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author makes a compelling case for why literature remains our richest record of human consciousness.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 12, 2026

“Alyssa…,” Garrett says, just as he said before he lost consciousness before, “I don’t feel so good.”

From "Dry" by Neal Shusterman and Jarrod Shusterman

“Alien: Earth” follows a group of children whose consciousnesses are transferred into synthetic adult bodies.

From Salon ● Dec. 14, 2025

The end of the series really becomes about all of those different consciousnesses having contrasting desires.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 21, 2025

According to her, the woman portrayed as a trickster "sums up our modern fragmented, hyphenated identities and multiple consciousnesses".

From BBC ● Jun. 20, 2022

In the other central conceit of “Pure Colour,” Mira and her father are paired as dual consciousnesses in a leaf, which functions as an extended metaphor for the interconnected entrapment of grief.

From Washington Post ● Feb. 16, 2022

Through the subconscious self, in those who had the gift of releasing it, of allowing its activities, could come, so he believed, communications from the individual consciousnesses which had passed out of the material world.

From Across the Stream by Edward Frederic Benson

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Related Words

• alertness
• apprehension
• awareness
• recognition
• sensibility

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