# false consciousness

> English word · Noun

## Definitions
1. A faulty understanding of the true character of social processes due to ideology.

## Etymology
Calque of German falsches Bewusstsein, as used by Friedrich Engels in a letter to Franz Mehring (1893).

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