# consciousness

Pronunciation: say "KON-shuhs-nuhs" US /ˈkɑnʃəsnəs/, UK /ˈkɒnʃəsnəs/

## Noun

1. The state of having thought and sensation; the mental life of thinking and feeling itself.
   - Simple: The state of being awake and able to notice, think, and feel.
   - _The boxer lost consciousness after the final blow._
   - _Philosophers still debate how consciousness arises from the brain._
2. Awareness or knowledge of a particular fact or matter.
   - Simple: The state of knowing about a certain fact or situation.
   - _A growing consciousness of the risks led her to leave the company._
   - _He acted with full consciousness of the consequences._
3. Acute awareness of something combined with a belief that it matters to one's whole community or group.
   - Simple: A strong shared awareness of an issue that a group sees as important to them all.
   - _The movement raised political consciousness across the region._
   - _Decades of organizing produced a class consciousness that reshaped the party._
4. A being possessing cognition; an entity capable of thought and awareness.
   - Simple: A thinking being that can sense and be aware.
   - _The novel follows a single consciousness drifting between bodies._
   - _Some thinkers ask whether two consciousnesses could ever share one brain._

## Origin

Formed from the adjective 'conscious' combined with the suffix '-ness'.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/consciousness (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).