CONSCIENTIOUS

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does conscientious mean? 

• CONSCIENTIOUS (adjective)
  The adjective CONSCIENTIOUS has 2 senses:

1. characterized by extreme care and great effort

2. guided by or in accordance with conscience or sense of right and wrong

  Familiarity information: CONSCIENTIOUS used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CONSCIENTIOUS (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Characterized by extreme care and great effort

Synonyms:

conscientious; painstaking; scrupulous

Context example:

scrupulous attention to details

Similar:

careful (exercising caution or showing care or attention)

Derivation:

conscientiousness (the trait of being painstaking and careful)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Guided by or in accordance with conscience or sense of right and wrong

Context example:

a conscientious decision to speak out about injustice

Antonym:

unconscientious (not conscientious)

Derivation:

conscience (conformity to one's own sense of right conduct)

conscience (a feeling of shame when you do something immoral)

conscientiousness (the quality of being in accord with the dictates of conscience)

 Context examples 

Then he's not—but of course he can't be, if he's really conscientious.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

She is conscientious, and I have no fear of her treating him unkindly.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

We all wish her extremely happy; and Mrs. Ferrars's conduct throughout the whole, has been such as every conscientious, good mother, in like circumstances, would adopt.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

I hope I should not have been influenced myself in a wrong way, and I am sure my father was too conscientious to have allowed it.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Findings show that people's eye movements reveal whether they are sociable, conscientious or curious, with the algorithm software reliably recognizing four of the Big Five personality traits: neuroticism, extroversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness.

(Eyes Can Indicate Personality Type, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

He deferred his departure a whole week, and during that time he made me feel what severe punishment a good yet stern, a conscientious yet implacable man can inflict on one who has offended him.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The affrighted Catherine, amidst all the terrors of expectation, as she listened to this account, could not but rejoice in the kind caution with which Henry had saved her from the necessity of a conscientious rejection, by engaging her faith before he mentioned the subject; and as he proceeded to give the particulars, and explain the motives of his father's conduct, her feelings soon hardened into even a triumphant delight.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

He seems to be a most conscientious and polite young man, upon my word, and I doubt not will prove a valuable acquaintance, especially if Lady Catherine should be so indulgent as to let him come to us again.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

“Dear me! Conscientious, is he? Really conscientious, now?”

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

It would really be gratifying to see them all again, and a little addition of society might be of infinite use to them; and as to yourself, you must feel yourself to be so wanted there, that you cannot in conscience—conscientious as you are—keep away, when you have the means of returning.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)