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View synonyms for conscience

conscience

[ kon-shuhns ]

noun

  1. the inner sense of what is right or wrong in one's conduct or motives, impelling one toward right action:

    to follow the dictates of conscience.

  2. the complex of ethical and moral principles that controls or inhibits the actions or thoughts of an individual.
  3. an inhibiting sense of what is prudent:

    I'd eat another piece of pie but my conscience would bother me.

  4. Obsolete. consciousness; self-knowledge.
  5. Obsolete. strict and reverential observance.


conscience

/ ˈkɒnʃəns /

noun

    1. the sense of right and wrong that governs a person's thoughts and actions
    2. regulation of one's actions in conformity to this sense
    3. a supposed universal faculty of moral insight
  1. conscientiousness; diligence
  2. a feeling of guilt or anxiety

    he has a conscience about his unkind action

  3. obsolete.
    consciousness
  4. in conscience or in all conscience
    1. with regard to truth and justice
    2. certainly
  5. on one's conscience
    causing feelings of guilt or remorse
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012


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Derived Forms

  • ˈconscienceless, adjective
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Other Words From

  • conscience·less adjective
  • conscience·less·ly adverb
  • conscience·less·ness noun
  • sub·conscience noun
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Word History and Origins

Origin of conscience1

First recorded in 1175–1225; Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin conscientia “knowledge, awareness, conscience”; equivalent to con- + science
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Word History and Origins

Origin of conscience1

C13: from Old French, from Latin conscientia knowledge, consciousness, from conscīre to know; see conscious
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Idioms and Phrases

Idioms
  1. have something on one's conscience, to feel guilty about something, as an act that one considers wrong:

    She behaves as if she had something on her conscience.

  2. in all conscience, Also in conscience.
    1. in all reason and fairness.

More idioms and phrases containing conscience

see have a clear conscience ; in conscience .
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Example Sentences

You’ve focused a lot on the soul and conscience of Mediabrands.

From Digiday

He wonders whether next season he will be able to win his job back or whether the state of the virus will have improved enough for him to return with a clear conscience.

If Republicans have genuinely relocated their fiscal consciences, they’ll listen.

She is a rapper with a conscience, and she’s not going away.

From Ozy

Don’t know if this is the answer you were looking for, but it’s the only one I can give in good conscience.

From Ozy

Instead, straighten your civic backbone and push back in clear conscience.

Better to be a beggar in freedom,” he cried out, “than to be forced into compromises against my conscience.

Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, Oskar Schindler—these names come readily to mind when we think of heroes of conscience.

As you put it, “letting some business owners exercise their conscience would cause no harm to gays.”

“Nothing in this country of good conscience has ever happened without protest,” he said.

She reached forward to it in ecstasy; but she might not enjoy it, save at the price which her conscience exacted.

In this way it will be managed with less offense and with more ease to the conscience than now.

My conscience importuned me to tell her bluntly that they would only come into Walsh feet first.

That he might lose his head and 'introduce an element of sex' was conscience confessing that it had been already introduced.

But the conscience of Louis was at rest; and he soon found that "man does not live by bread alone!"

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Related Words

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

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consarnedconscience clause