unconscious

American  

[uhn-kon-shuhs] / ʌnˈkɒn ʃəs /

adjective

1. not conscious; without awareness, sensation, or cognition.

2. temporarily devoid of consciousness.

3. not perceived at the level of awareness; occurring below the level of conscious thought.

   an unconscious impulse.

4. not consciously realized, planned, or done; without conscious volition or intent.

   an unconscious social slight.

5. not endowed with mental faculties.

   the unconscious stones.

---

noun

1. Psychoanalysis. the unconscious, the part of the mind containing psychic material that is only rarely accessible to awareness but that has a pronounced influence on behavior.

unconscious British  

/ ʌnˈkɒnʃəs /

adjective

1. lacking normal sensory awareness of the environment; insensible

2. not aware of one's actions, behaviour, etc

   unconscious of his bad manners

3. characterized by lack of awareness or intention

   an unconscious blunder

4. coming from or produced by the unconscious

   unconscious resentment

---

noun

1. psychoanal the part of the mind containing instincts, impulses, images, and ideas that are not available for direct examination See also collective unconscious Compare subconscious preconscious

unconscious Cultural  

1. The part of the psyche lying far below consciousness and not easily raised into consciousness. In Freudian psychology, the unconscious cannot be directly observed with the conscious mind, but it has its own processes and deeply affects conscious thought.

---

Other Word Forms

• unconsciousness
  noun
• quasi-unconscious
  adjective
• self-unconscious
  adjective
• unconsciously
  adverb

Etymology

Origin of unconscious

First recorded in 1705–15; 1915–20 unconscious for def. 6; un- ¹ + conscious

Explanation

When you're unconscious you're passed out or asleep. Anything going on in the body that we're not aware of can also be called unconscious. Being unconscious can be very nice, especially when you're in the middle of a deep sleep. But if you're unconscious because you fainted or got hit in the head, that's not so good. Unconscious people aren't aware of what's going on, and they can't talk or do things — except maybe for sleepwalking and sleeptalking. There are also unconscious thoughts and desires: things going on in the mind that you don't know about.

Example Sentences

But emergency dispatch audio reported by US media has deepened concern in Washington, indicating that responders were sent that morning to McConnell's address for an unconscious person and that CPR was in progress.

From Barron's • Jul. 7, 2026

Cusack, 27, was found unconscious by her father David at their family home in Horsley, Derbyshire, on 20 September 2023 and was pronounced dead the same day.

From BBC • Jul. 6, 2026

To investigate what the unconscious brain is capable of, Sheth and his colleagues recorded the activity of hundreds of individual neurons in the hippocampus, a brain region involved in memory.

From Science Daily • Jun. 29, 2026

The caller said that family members had found the elderly woman, identified as Kun-Ying Yang, unconscious in her apartment.

From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 8, 2026

But the guard wouldn’t be unconscious long and Alex knew he had to get out of here, not just back up to ground level but out of Sayle Enterprises altogether.

From "Stormbreaker" by Anthony Horowitz

Related Words

• innate
• instinctive
• latent
• lost
• repressed
• subliminal
• suppressed