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

What elevates Mellencamp’s song is the dual consciousness in his raspy vocal: the nagging belief in a dream that, like everything else, “just kind of came and went.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 10, 2026

Instead, the findings suggest that very different experiences may sometimes engage overlapping brain processes associated with altered states of consciousness.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 9, 2026

The campaign was part of the reason the case "never properly left the public consciousness", according to Oxford West and Abingdon MP Layla Moran.

From BBC ● Aug. 8, 2026

The former Senate majority leader was hospitalized June 14 after he briefly lost consciousness and fell.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 2026

I had long felt with pleasure that many of my rustic scholars liked me, and when we parted, that consciousness was confirmed: they manifested their affection plainly and strongly.

From "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë

Their brains have been surgically altered, dividing their work life and home life into separate consciousnesses which are described by the company as “innies” and “outies.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 15, 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 autofiction, bewilderment and shapelessness tend to be part of the point, as the form mimics the myopia of lived experience and the confines of our solitary consciousnesses.

From New York Times ● May 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

I believe this: If, when we pass into the Unknown, we continue to exist as individual consciousnesses, then we carry with us the heaven and the hell that we have each upbuilt for ourselves.”

From Out of the Depths A Romance of Reclamation by George Brehm

Related Words

• alertness
• apprehension
• awareness
• recognition
• sensibility