conscience

1. 1.

   motivation deriving logically from ethical or moral principles that govern a person's thoughts and actions

   Synonymsscruplesmoral sensesense of right and wrong

   Broaderethical motive

   Narrowersuperegowee small voicesense of shame
2. 2.

   conformity to one's own sense of right conduct

   “a person of unflagging conscience”

   Broadermorality

   Narrowerconscientiousnessunconscientiousness
3. 3.

   a feeling of shame when you do something immoral

   “he has no conscience about his cruelty”

   Broadershame

Other forms of conscience

plural

consciences·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about conscience

What does conscience mean?

conscience means "motivation deriving logically from ethical or moral principles that govern a person's thoughts and actions". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in conscience?

conscience has 2 syllables: con-science. The stress falls on "con". In IPA it is /ˈkɑnʃəns/.

What is another word for conscience?

Close synonyms include scruples, moral sense, sense of right and wrong. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is conscience a common word?

conscience is banded "Common" — everyday vocabulary in speech and writing. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.