# conscious

> English word · Adjective · IPA /ˈkɑn.ʃəs/ · frequency rank #5,312

## Definitions
1. Alert, awake; with one's mental faculties active.
2. Aware of one's own existence; aware of one's own awareness.
3. Aware of, sensitive to; observing and noticing, or being strongly interested in or concerned about.
4. Deliberate, intentional, done with awareness of what one is doing.
5. Known or felt personally, internally by a person.
6. Self-conscious, or aware of wrongdoing, feeling guilty.

## Etymology
First use appears c. 1573 in the sense of "aware of wrongdoing".https://web.archive.org/web/20220714064352/https://www.lexico.com/definition/conscious From Latin cōnscius (“conscious, conscious of guilt”), itself from con- (a form of com- (“together”)) + scīre (“to know”) + -us.

## Easily confused with
- **couscous** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/conscious-vs-couscous)
- **consciously** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/conscious-vs-consciously)

## Common misspellings (13)
`cconscious`, `cnoscious`, `concsious`, `connscious`, `consccious`, `consciosu`, `consciouss`, `consciuos`, `conscoius`, `consicous`, `consscious`, `cosncious`, `ocnscious`

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/word/conscious