How to spell conscience

hear itcon·science/'kɑnʃəns/nounPrefixes and work

What it means: A feeling that guides moral choices and actions.

In a sentence: Pinocchio learned to listen to his conscience to make good choices.

The part people get wrong

Watch for an unstressed vowel that is hard to hear, and the order of ie. Often misspelled as concience or conscious.

Same family: conscientious, conscientiously, conscious, consciousness, scruples. If you can spell one, the shared part carries to the others.

Where it comes from: Conscience comes from Latin 'conscientia', meaning 'knowledge within oneself' or 'joint knowledge.' It is closely related to the word 'conscious,' which explains why English speakers often confuse or misspell the two.

Patterns it uses: The unstressed vowel (schwa)

Try spelling it

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