presence of mind

1. 1.

   self-control in a crisis; ability to say or do the right thing in an emergency

   Broaderself-control

Questions about presence of mind

What does presence of mind mean?

presence of mind means "self-control in a crisis; ability to say or do the right thing in an emergency".

Is presence of mind a common word?

presence of mind is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.