Confusing Words: Conscience (noun) and Conscious (adjective)
Meaning:
Conscience (a person’s moral sense of right and wrong, viewed as acting as a guide to one’s behaviour.)
Conscious (aware of and responding to one’s surroundings.)
Conscience vs Conscious Clarification: Conscience and conscious are not interchangeable. They have totally different meanings from each other.
Conscience vs Conscious – What is the Difference, Definition & Meaning?
There are thousands of confusing words in English vocabulary that, sometimes, make writers or speakers think twice, when to use which word. Today, I am coming up with two such words that are not actually homophones, but they are so close in terms of their pronunciations that drag them in the confusing category. The case is conscience vs. conscious.
Both of these words have quite similar pronunciations. This is the reason for the confusion between them. It is very important to keep these words apart. Conscience and conscious are not interchangeable. Let us check out their definitions and example sentences one by one.
Conscience
Conscience is used as a noun within a sentence. It is used to refer an inner thought of a person to judge the morality i.e. to have an idea of good and bad behavior. Conscience can be synonymous with moral sense.
1. He had a clear conscience that is why he said, “I did not do anything wrong.”
2. From the end of the War for Independence, the conscience of the newly formed United States was marred by almost constant internal and external warfare. (The Battlefords News-Optimist)
Conscious
Conscious is used as an adjective within a sentence. It means aware of one’s surroundings. Conscious can be synonymous with awake, alert or responsive.
1. Doctors let him be conscious during his major operation.
2. Fernando Torres is now “stable and conscious” after suffering a horrific head injury in a collision with a defender. (Liverpool Echo)
Got the Difference?
Conscience and conscious are two different words in terms of meaning as well as in function. You have to be very careful with word choice as wrong choice can give a bad impression to your writing.
The confusion between conscience and conscious is because of their pronunciations that are quite similar. However, you cannot say that their pronunciations are identical. Conscience is pronounced as /kän-shəns/. If you remove an “n” from this pronunciation then, it will become the pronunciation of conscious i.e. /kän-shəs/.
What Did You Learn?
Conscience and conscious are not interchangeable. They have totally different meanings from each other.
Conscience is a noun, which is used to refer an awareness of morality i.e. idea of good and bad behavior.
Conscious, on the other hand, is an adjective meaning to be aware of one’s surroundings; or more likely to say to be awake or alert.