conscience

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   conformity to one's own sense of right conduct

   a person of unflagging conscience

2. 2
   noun

   a feeling of shame when you do something immoral

   They have no conscience about their cruelty to animals.

3. 3
   noun

   The ethical or moral sense of right and wrong, chiefly as it affects a person’s own behaviour and forms their attitude to their past actions.

   Your conscience is your highest authority.

4. 4
   noun

   Consciousness; thinking; awareness, especially self-awareness.

   Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.

5. 5
   noun

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

6. 6
   noun

   A personification of the moral sense of right and wrong, usually in the form of a person, a being or merely a voice that gives moral lessons and advices.

Etymology

From Middle English conscience, from Old French conscience, from Latin conscientia (“knowledge within oneself”), from consciens, present participle of conscire (“to know, to be conscious (of wrong)”), from com- (“together”) + scire (“to know”).