Subconscious

How to spell subconscious

12 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce subconscious

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does subconscious mean?

1. adjectiveExisting or operating in the mind without a person being directly aware of it.
2. nounThe part of the mind holding thoughts and feelings that influence behaviour without conscious awareness.

Subconscious in a sentence

• adjective

  Her subconscious fear of flying surfaced only when the plane began to descend.

• noun

  The therapist believed the answer was buried deep in his subconscious.

• adjective

  The advert relies on a subconscious link between the brand and feeling relaxed.

• noun

  Old memories stored in the subconscious can shape everyday decisions.

Where does subconscious come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word is built on the older adjective 'conscious', which English took in the early 1600s from the Latin conscius, literally 'knowing together with' or 'sharing knowledge', formed from com- meaning 'with' and the verb scire meaning 'to know'. The same scire root gives us 'science', 'conscience' and 'omniscient', and it is the reason the awkward 'sc' cluster sits in the middle of the word. The prefix sub- means 'under' or 'below', so 'subconscious' describes mental activity lying just beneath the level of awareness. It is a fairly modern coinage, appearing in English in the first half of the 1800s and made famous through nineteenth-century psychology, where it competed for a while with 'unconscious'. The spelling trap is twofold: the silent run of 'sci' that sounds simply like 'sh', and the -ous ending that writers sometimes mistake for -ious or -ous confusion.

How the word is built

• sub- (under, below)
• con- (with, together)
• sci (from scire: to know)
• -ous (adjective suffix)