Conscience
//ˈkɑn.ʃəns// noun
noun ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 The ethical or moral sense of right and wrong, chiefly as it affects a person’s own behaviour and forms their attitude to their past actions. countable, uncountable
"Your conscience is your highest authority."
- 2 conformity to one's own sense of right conduct wordnet
- 3 A personification of the moral sense of right and wrong, usually in the form of a person, a being or merely a voice that gives moral lessons and advices. countable, uncountable
- 4 a feeling of shame when you do something immoral wordnet
- 5 Consciousness; thinking; awareness, especially self-awareness. countable, obsolete, uncountable
"Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought."
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- 6 motivation deriving logically from ethical or moral principles that govern a person's thoughts and actions wordnet
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"His lie weighed on his conscience."
Etymology
From Middle English conscience, from Old French conscience, from Latin conscientia (“knowledge within oneself”), from consciens, present participle of conscire (“to know, to be conscious (of wrong)”), from com- (“together”) + scire (“to know”).
Related phrases
More for "conscience"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.