Consciously

How to spell consciously

11 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce consciously

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does consciously mean?

1. adverbIn a deliberate and fully aware way; with intentional attention.

Consciously in a sentence

• She consciously slowed her breathing before the interview.

• He consciously avoided checking his phone during the meeting.

Where does consciously come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb scire, meaning 'to know', which also gives us 'science'. From it came conscius, literally 'knowing something together with another', combining con- 'with' and the knowing root, and originally describing shared awareness or guilty knowledge. English took up 'conscious' in the early 1600s to mean inwardly aware of one's own thoughts and surroundings, and the adverb 'consciously' followed by adding the everyday -ly ending. The tricky spelling comes straight from that Latin sci cluster: the 'sc' that once spelled the 'know' sound now sits silently in the middle, pronounced 'sh', which is why writers so often drop a letter. The same hidden sci appears in its close relatives 'conscience' and 'conscientious', all carrying the original sense of knowing.

How the word is built

• con- (with, together)
• sci (from scire, to know)
• -ous (full of)
• -ly (adverb suffix)