consciousness

From conscious +‎ -ness.

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈkɑnʃəsnəs/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈkɒnʃəsnəs/

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consciousness (countable and uncountable, plural consciousnesses)

1. (uncountable) The state of being conscious or aware; awareness.
   1. The state or trait of having cognition and sensation; cognition and sensation themselves.

      To lose consciousness after striking one's head

      • 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 39:

        Consciousness is universal and precedes even the formation of our solar system.

      • 2013 August 3, “The machine of a new soul”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847:

        Yet this is the level of organisation that does the actual thinking—and is, presumably, the seat of consciousness.

   2. The fact of having knowledge of a particular fact or matter; cognizance.
      • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter V, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:

        Although the Celebrity was almost impervious to sarcasm, he was now beginning to exhibit visible signs of uneasiness, the consciousness dawning upon him that his eccentricity was not receiving the ovation it merited.

      • 1913 June–December, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “Through the Valley of the Shadow”, in The Return of Tarzan, New York, N.Y.: A[lbert] L[evi] Burt Company, […], published March 1915, →OCLC, page 127:

        The solitude and the savage freedom filled his heart with life and buoyancy. Again he was Tarzan of the Apes—every sense alert against the chance of surprise by some jungle enemy—yet treading lightly and with head erect, in proud consciousness of his might.

   3. (politics) Acute awareness (of something) and belief in its communal relevance.

      the development of a feminist consciousness

      • 1975 December 27, Neil Miller, “Anti-Military Backlash Surfaces”, in Gay Community News, volume 3, number 26, page 3:

        This new anti-military consciousness surfaced at the Gay Academic Union Conference held last month in New York, where two broadsides and a meeting were held to discuss the situation. And in San Francisco, after a stormy meeting of Bay Area Gay Liberation (BAGEL), the group refused to co-sponsor a fund-raising event for former T/Sgt. Leonard Matlovich.

2. (countable) A being with cognition.
   • 2008, BioWare, Mass Effect, Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Asari: Religion Codex entry:

     The pantheistic mainstream asari religion is siari, which translates roughly as "All is one." The faithful agree on certain core truths: the universe is a consciousness, every life within it is an aspect of the greater whole, and death is a merging of one's spiritual energy back into the greater universal consciousness. Siarists don't specifically believe in reincarnation; they believe that spiritual energy returned to the universal consciousness upon death will eventually be used to fill new mortal vessels.

• awareness
• witfulness

• unconsciousness

• conscious
• conscience

• being-for-itself