Conscientious

How to spell conscientious

13 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce conscientious

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does conscientious mean?

1. adjectiveCareful, thorough, and diligent in carrying out work or duties, guided by a wish to do things properly.

Conscientious in a sentence

• She is a conscientious worker who checks every detail before submitting a report.

• He took a conscientious approach to the project.

• A conscientious employee is worth their weight in gold.

Where does conscientious come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin conscientia, meaning 'knowledge shared with oneself' or 'conscience', which was built from conscire 'to be aware', combining con- 'with' and scire 'to know'. The same scire root underlies a whole family of familiar words, including 'science', 'conscience', and 'omniscient', all of them turning on the idea of knowing. English took conscientious from the French consciencieux in the early 1600s, and it originally described an action done according to the dictates of conscience. The meaning soon broadened to its modern sense of being careful, thorough, and diligent in doing what is right. The spelling is a notorious adult trap because it packs in the 'sci' cluster of conscience plus the soft '-tious' ending, so both the silent feel of 'sci' and the choice between -tious and -cious have to be remembered at once.

How the word is built

• con- (with, intensive)
• sci (from scire: to know)
• -entia (forming the noun conscientia: conscience)
• -ous (adjective: full of)