consciousness
/ˈkɑnʃəsnəs/noun
consciousness is spelled C-O-N-S-C-I-O-U-S-N-E-S-S. The wrong spelling people search most is conciousness: about 640 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 10 of all searches for the word. Consciousness is a noun meaning “The state of being conscious or aware; awareness”. The plural of consciousness is consciousnesses.
How many letters and syllables are in consciousness?
| Letters | 13: C-O-N-S-C-I-O-U-S-N-E-S-S |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 13 times per million words; the 5,778th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 4; the most searched, conciousness, about 640 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).
How do you spell consciousness?
Consciousness is spelled C-O-N-S-C-I-O-U-S-N-E-S-S. 4 wrong spellings are searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 10 of the searches for consciousness in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is consciousness?
Consciousness appears 13 times per million words in written English, the 5,778th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce consciousness?
- UK /ˈkɒnʃəsnəs/
- US /ˈkɑnʃəsnəs/
- Canada /ˈkɒnʃəsnəs/
Consciousness has 3 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-consciousness.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of consciousness
- consciousnesses plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does consciousness mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
The state of being conscious or aware; awareness.
- 2
The state or trait of having cognition and sensation; cognition and sensation themselves.
To lose consciousness after striking one's head
- 3
The fact of having knowledge of a particular fact or matter; cognizance.
- 4
Acute awareness (of something) and belief in its communal relevance.
the development of a feminist consciousness
- 5
A being with cognition.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Consciousness in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense awareness:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | conscience |
| German | Bewusstsein, Gewahrsein, Erkenntnis, Bewusstheit, Wahrnehmung |
| Portuguese | consciência |
| Spanish | conciencia |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does consciousness come from?
From conscious + -ness.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).