{
    "term": "conscience",
    "partOfSpeech": "noun",
    "ox5000": true,
    "cefr": "c1",
    "definitions": [
        {
            "senseNumber": 1,
            "definition": "the part of your mind that tells you whether your actions are right or wrong",
            "cefr": "c1",
            "examples": [
                {
                    "text": "to have a **clear/guilty conscience** *(= to feel that you have done right/wrong)*"
                },
                {
                    "text": "This is a **matter of** individual **conscience** *(= everyone must make their own judgement about it)*."
                },
                {
                    "text": "He won't let it trouble his conscience."
                },
                {
                    "text": "I salve my conscience by recycling as much as possible."
                },
                {
                    "text": "At the end of each day, examine your conscience."
                },
                {
                    "text": "He felt his conscience telling him to apologize."
                },
                {
                    "text": "I wrestled with my conscience all night long."
                },
                {
                    "text": "Her conscience pricked her every time she thought of how cruel she had been to Kirby."
                },
                {
                    "text": "His conscience was bothering him a little."
                },
                {
                    "text": "How can you do your job with a clean conscience?"
                },
                {
                    "text": "I have a clear conscience."
                },
                {
                    "text": "I have only ever followed my conscience."
                },
                {
                    "text": "It should be a matter of individual conscience."
                },
                {
                    "text": "It's important to let your conscience guide your decisions."
                },
                {
                    "text": "My conscience dictates that I resign."
                },
                {
                    "text": "She refused to listen to the voice of conscience."
                },
                {
                    "text": "To clear my conscience and make it up to you, I'd like to take you out to dinner."
                },
                {
                    "text": "a bill which has shocked the conscience of every middle-class community"
                },
                {
                    "text": "a dying man with a guilty conscience"
                },
                {
                    "text": "a government with no social conscience"
                },
                {
                    "text": "consumers with an environmental conscience"
                },
                {
                    "text": "the collective conscience of American business"
                },
                {
                    "text": "His decision appears to have been an act of conscience."
                }
            ],
            "topics": ["Personal qualities"],
            "collocations": {
                "adjective": ["clean", "clear", "easy"],
                "verb + conscience": ["have", "appease", "assuage"],
                "conscience + verb": [
                    "guide somebody/​something",
                    "tell somebody something",
                    "bother somebody"
                ],
                "preposition": ["on your conscience"],
                "phrases": [
                    "an act of conscience",
                    "an attack of conscience",
                    "a crisis of conscience"
                ]
            }
        },
        {
            "senseNumber": 2,
            "definition": "a guilty feeling about something you have done or failed to do",
            "cefr": "c1",
            "examples": [
                {
                    "text": "She was seized by a sudden pang of conscience."
                },
                {
                    "text": "I have a terrible conscience about it."
                },
                {
                    "text": "He had no conscience about taking his brother's money."
                },
                {
                    "text": "Best came forward because of an attack of conscience."
                },
                {
                    "text": "I had a sudden pang of conscience that I really ought to tell the truth."
                },
                {
                    "text": "We assuaged our conscience by telling ourselves that they would be worse off without us."
                }
            ],
            "collocations": {
                "adjective": ["clean", "clear", "easy"],
                "verb + conscience": ["have", "appease", "assuage"],
                "conscience + verb": [
                    "guide somebody/​something",
                    "tell somebody something",
                    "bother somebody"
                ],
                "preposition": ["on your conscience"],
                "phrases": [
                    "an act of conscience",
                    "an attack of conscience",
                    "a crisis of conscience"
                ]
            }
        },
        {
            "senseNumber": 3,
            "definition": "the fact of behaving in a way that you feel is right even though this may cause problems",
            "cefr": "c1",
            "examples": [
                {
                    "text": "freedom of conscience *(= the freedom to do what you believe to be right)*"
                },
                {
                    "text": "Emilia is the voice of conscience in the play."
                },
                {
                    "text": "How could people of conscience allow this to happen?"
                },
                {
                    "text": "individual rights and rights of conscience on our campuses of higher education"
                }
            ],
            "collocations": {
                "adjective": ["clean", "clear", "easy"],
                "verb + conscience": ["have", "appease", "assuage"],
                "conscience + verb": [
                    "guide somebody/​something",
                    "tell somebody something",
                    "bother somebody"
                ],
                "preposition": ["on your conscience"],
                "phrases": [
                    "an act of conscience",
                    "an attack of conscience",
                    "a crisis of conscience"
                ]
            }
        },
        {
            "senseNumber": null,
            "definition": "believing your actions to be fair",
            "labels": "(formal)",
            "examples": [
                {
                    "text": "We cannot in all conscience refuse to help."
                }
            ],
            "synonyms": "honestly"
        },
        {
            "senseNumber": null,
            "definition": "making you feel guilty for doing or failing to do something",
            "examples": [
                {
                    "text": "I'll write and apologize. I've had it on my conscience for weeks."
                },
                {
                    "text": "It’s still on my conscience that I didn’t warn him in time."
                },
                {
                    "text": "It was on his conscience that he hadn't called her."
                },
                {
                    "text": "I'm sure she has something on her conscience."
                }
            ],
            "topics": ["Feelings"]
        },
        {
            "senseNumber": null,
            "definition": "to make you feel guilty about something; to feel guilty about something",
            "examples": [
                {
                    "text": "Her conscience pricked her as she lied to her sister."
                }
            ]
        }
    ],
    "pronunciations": {
        "uk": [
            {
                "pronunciation": "/ˈkɒnʃəns/",
                "audio": "xc/conscience/xconscience__gb_1.mp3"
            }
        ],
        "us": [
            {
                "pronunciation": "/ˈkɑːnʃəns/",
                "audio": "xc/conscience/xconscience__us_1.mp3"
            }
        ]
    },
    "wordOrigin": "Middle English (also in the sense ‘inner thoughts or knowledge’): via Old French from Latin conscientia, from conscient- ‘being privy to’, from the verb conscire, from con- ‘with’ + scire ‘know’."
}