consciousness

noun

Simple meaning

An alert cognitive state in which you are aware of yourself and your situation.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

kahnshuhsnuhs

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US device voice

IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈkɑnʃəsnəs

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

uncountable
The state of being conscious or aware; awareness.
An alert cognitive state in which you are aware of yourself and your situation
The state or trait of having cognition and sensation; cognition and sensation themselves.
The fact of having knowledge of a particular fact or matter; cognizance.
countable
A being with cognition.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty: B1 · Intermediate (estimated)
Frequency: Common
Typical Use: General English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: The state of being conscious or aware; awareness.

Used this way, consciousness is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone: Neutral
Formality: Neutral
Intensity: Not strongly marked
How common: Moderately common
Connotation: Matter-of-fact
Usage feel: Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use consciousness

“He lost consciousness.”noun

Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

class consciousnesshuman consciousnessnational consciousnesspolitical consciousnesssocial consciousnessreligious consciousness

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

consciouslyadverbDerived adverb
With awareness.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

consciousness-altering drugnounCompound term
A drug that can produce mood changes and distorted perceptions.
loss of consciousnessnounCompound term
The occurrence of a loss of the ability to perceive and respond.
self-consciousnessnounCompound term
Embarrassment deriving from the feeling that others are critically aware of you.
stream of consciousnessnounCompound term
A literary genre that reveals a character's thoughts and feeling as they develop by means of a long soliloquy.
international society for krishna consciousnessnounCompound term
A religious sect founded in the United States in 1966.

Related Words

Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.

unconsciousadjective
mindnoun
yoganoun
consciousadjective

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Antonyms

Sense: being conscious or aware

unconsciousness

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.