Conscience vs. Conscious
How to use "conscience" and "conscious" correctlyThis is an entry on my list of Common Errors in English Usage. Visit the main page for direct links to additional entries.
Your conscience is your sense of morality, the “voice in your head” that tells you that you shouldn’t, for example, throw rotten eggs at your English tutor’s car. The adjective form of conscience is conscientious, which means “showing great care and thoroughness”:
obey the dictates of your conscience
a conscientious worker
Conscious is an adjective meaning “awake” or “aware.” Its noun form is consciousness:
felt self-conscious in front of a crowd
regained consciousness
Related Resources
Common Errors in English Usage: Errors in diction and idiom commonly made by native speakers of English
List of Common Errors in English Usage (PDF): Printable version of the complete list
Common Grammar Errors: A list of common errors in grammar (topics like subject-verb agreement and parallelism) as distinct from usage
List of Common Errors in English Usage: PDF version
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