Conscientious or conscious?
conscientious is an adjective meaning “Thorough, careful, or vigilant in one’s task performance; painstaking”; conscious is an adjective meaning “Alert, awake; with one's mental faculties active”. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) conscious is about 8.7 times as common as conscientious.
What is the difference between conscientious and conscious?
| conscientious | conscious | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | adjective | adjective, noun |
| Meaning | Thorough, careful, or vigilant in one’s task performance; painstaking Influenced by conscience; principled; governed by a strict regard to the dictates of conscience, or by the known or supposed rules of right and wrong (said of… | Alert, awake; with one's mental faculties active Aware of one's own existence; aware of one's own awareness The part of the mind that is aware of itself; the consciousness |
| Example | He was a thoughtful and conscientious worker | The noise woke me, but it was another few minutes before I was fully conscious |
| Pronunciation | /ˌkɒn.ʃiˈɛn.ʃəs/ /ˌkɑn.ʃiˈɛn.ʃəs/ | /ˈkɑn.ʃəs/ /ˈkɒn.ʃəs/ /ˈkɒntʃəs/ |
| In writing | 1.7 times per million words | 15 times per million words |
Sources: conscientious and conscious in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of conscientious and conscious
conscientious
- 1
Thorough, careful, or vigilant in one’s task performance; painstaking
He was a thoughtful and conscientious worker
- 2
Influenced by conscience; principled; governed by a strict regard to the dictates of conscience, or by the known or supposed rules of right and wrong (said of a person)
The advice of wise and conscientious people
conscious
- 1
Alert, awake; with one's mental faculties active
The noise woke me, but it was another few minutes before I was fully conscious
- 2
The part of the mind that is aware of itself; the consciousness
- 3
Aware of one's own existence; aware of one's own awareness
Only highly intelligent beings can be fully conscious
- 4
Aware of, sensitive to; observing and noticing, or being strongly interested in or concerned about
I was conscious of a noise behind me. a very class-conscious analysis
- 5
Deliberate, intentional, done with awareness of what one is doing
- 6
Known or felt personally, internally by a person
conscious guilt
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, conscientious or conscious?
conscientious appears 1.7 times per million words; conscious 15 times per million words.
conscientious 1.7 times per million wordsconscious 15 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search conscientious vs conscious?
“conscientious vs conscious” is searched about 1,000 times a month on Google and 20 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“conscious vs conscientious”, “conscientious or conscious”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.