Etymologically
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conscious

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ˈkɑn.ʃəs/; /ˈkɒn.ʃəs/, /ˈkɒntʃəs/ (UK)[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin conscius (“knowing something with others; knowing in oneself”),[2][3][4][5] from cōnscīre (“to be mutually aware”), from com- (“with; thoroughly”) and scīre (“to know”) (see science).[3][2] The Latin word was probably a loan-translation of Greek συνειδώς (suneidṓs).[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Knowing, privy to: 1601, in Ben Jonson's Poetaster;[2][6] about 1600 in Etymonline.[3] MWU dates it to 1573.[4] NODE gives the first sense as aware of wrongdoing.[7]

Semantic evolution

In Latin the sense moved from knowing along with others to privy to a crime, guilty and also inwardly aware.[2] In English conscious to oneself, having inward witness, is from 1620,[6] and knowing or perceiving within oneself, aware, from 1632 (the 1630s in Etymonline), perhaps shortened from it.[2][3] Having guilty knowledge is from 1652,[6] and aware of a fact from the 1650s.[3] Awake and having the use of one's faculties is from 1837.[3] Consciousness is from 1632.[2]

Timeline

  • 1573 – first use (MWU).[4]
  • 1601 – privy to.[2][6]
  • 1620 – conscious to oneself.[6]
  • 1632 – inwardly aware.[2]
  • 1837 – awake.[3]

Modern meaning

Adjective

  1. Aware of one's surroundings and able to think and feel; awake.
  2. (conscious of) Aware of or noticing something.
  3. Done deliberately; intentional: a conscious decision.
  4. Concerned with or attentive to something: fashion-conscious.

Noun

  1. (the conscious) The part of the mind that is aware.

Word family

  • consciously
  • consciousness
  • preconscious
  • self-conscious
  • subconscious
  • foreconscious
  • hyperconscious
  • nonconscious

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  5. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b c d e Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press