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

The cataclysm is indelibly seared into La Guaira’s collective consciousness.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 14, 2026

“Society opened up and everyone started speaking out in public about Taiwanese consciousness, rallying behind a Taiwanese identity—and boom, it was established,” Lin said.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 10, 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

If we are lucky enough to survive into our 20s, and have attained some degree of adult consciousness, we all will have lived a coming-of-age story.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 5, 2026

A commitment to color consciousness, by contrast, places faith in our capacity as humans to show care and concern for others, even as we are fully cognizant of race and possible racial differences.

From "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander

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

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 21, 2025

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

Ladd says she's received a message that needs to be shared from "higher dimensional consciousnesses," what she refers to as the "Galactic Federation of Light."

From Salon ● Mar. 5, 2021

In every instant obscure consciousnesses, elementary souls, are born and die within us, and their birth and death constitute our life.

From Tragic Sense Of Life by J. E. Crawford (John Ernest Crawford) Flitch

Related Words

• alertness
• apprehension
• awareness
• recognition
• sensibility