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

Etymology

Origin of consciousness

First recorded in 1625–35; conscious + -ness

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

Scientists widely agree that organoids are not capable of consciousness or other higher-order brain functions.

From Barron's ● Aug. 19, 2026

New model specs for teens are designed to avoid the use of romantic language, to discourage emotional dependence and to avoid any implication that the chatbot has feelings or consciousness.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 18, 2026

That relationship suggests that greater communication across brain networks may be associated with a stronger likelihood of experiencing profound changes in consciousness.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 9, 2026

The dangers of lithium-ion batteries really broke into the public consciousness following a series of phone-related fires about a decade ago.

From BBC ● Aug. 6, 2026

“If you set the surge up high enough, you’ll be glad you’re awake; that’s the whole point. At setting C it overcomes the threshold barring consciousness, as it does for me.”

From "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Philip K. Dick

Kirsh is a Prodigy scientist working beside Hybrids, a proprietary invention that involves downloading human consciousnesses into synthetic bodies.

From Salon ● Sep. 8, 2025

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

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 21, 2025

We attempted to be as objective as possible but were also aware that there are countless other exhibitions that, whatever their contributions to the culture at large, live on in individual consciousnesses.

From New York Times ● Sep. 25, 2023

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

From BBC ● Jun. 20, 2022

The collective consciousness is the highest form of the psychic life, since it is the consciousness of the consciousnesses.

From Introduction to the Science of Sociology by Robert Ezra Park

Related Words

• alertness
• apprehension
• awareness
• recognition
• sensibility