All 29 Uses of

conscious
in
Moby Dick

Now, when I say that I am in the habit of going to sea whenever I begin to grow hazy about the eyes, and begin to be over conscious of my lungs, I do not mean to have it inferred that I ever go to sea as a passenger.†
Chpt 1-3

I knew not how this consciousness at last glided away from me; but waking in the morning, I shudderingly remembered it all, and for days and weeks and months afterwards I lost myself in confounding attempts to explain the mystery.†
Chpt 4-6

At length, by dint of much wriggling, and loud and incessant expostulations upon the unbecomingness of his hugging a fellow male in that matrimonial sort of style, I succeeded in extracting a grunt; and presently, he drew back his arm, shook himself all over like a Newfoundland dog just from the water, and sat up in bed, stiff as a pike-staff, looking at me, and rubbing his eyes as if he did not altogether remember how I came to be there, though a dim consciousness of knowing something about me seemed slowly dawning over him.†
Chpt 4-6

But, perhaps, to be true philosophers, we mortals should not be conscious of so living or so striving.†
Chpt 10-12 *

But if, like Queequeg and me in the bed, the tip of your nose or the crown of your head be slightly chilled, why then, indeed, in the general consciousness you feel most delightfully and unmistakably warm.†
Chpt 10-12

Was there ever such unconsciousness?†
Chpt 13-15

unconsciousness = a state similar to sleep where one is unaware of anything

standard prefix: The prefix "un-" in unconsciousness means not and reverses the meaning of consciousness. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.

That Himmalehan, salt-sea Mastodon, clothed with such portentousness of unconscious power, that his very panics are more to be dreaded than his most fearless and malicious assaults!†
Chpt 13-15 *

unconscious = a state similar to sleep where one is unaware of anything

standard prefix: The prefix "un-" in unconscious means not and reverses the meaning of conscious. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.

"I dost," said I unconsciously, he was so intense a Quaker.†
Chpt 16-18

unconsciously = not in a self-aware manner

standard prefix: The prefix "un-" in unconsciously means not and reverses the meaning of consciously. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky. Also note that while many people use this as a synonym for subconsciously, experts in the mind may distinguish a difference.

Unconsciously clapping the vinegar-cruet to one side of her nose, she ruminated for an instant; then exclaimed—"No!†
Chpt 16-18 *

This ignorant, unconscious fearlessness of his made him a little waggish in the matter of whales; he followed these fish for the fun of it; and a three years' voyage round Cape Horn was only a jolly joke that lasted that length of time.†
Chpt 25-27

unconscious = a state similar to sleep where one is unaware of anything

standard prefix: The prefix "un-" in unconscious means not and reverses the meaning of conscious. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.

Not a word he spoke; nor did his officers say aught to him; though by all their minutest gestures and expressions, they plainly showed the uneasy, if not painful, consciousness of being under a troubled master-eye.†
Chpt 28-30

Here have I been unconsciously toiling, not pleasuring—aye, and ignorantly smoking to windward all the while; to windward, and with such nervous whiffs, as if, like the dying whale, my final jets were the strongest and fullest of trouble.†
Chpt 28-30

unconsciously = not in a self-aware manner

standard prefix: The prefix "un-" in unconsciously means not and reverses the meaning of consciously. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky. Also note that while many people use this as a synonym for subconsciously, experts in the mind may distinguish a difference.

Perhaps they were; or perhaps there might have been shoals of them in the far horizon; but lulled into such an opium-like listlessness of vacant, unconscious reverie is this absent-minded youth by the blending cadence of waves with thoughts, that at last he loses his identity; takes the mystic ocean at his feet for the visible image of that deep, blue, bottomless soul, pervading mankind and nature; and every strange, half-seen, gliding, beautiful thing that eludes him; every dimly-discovered, uprising fin of some undiscernible form, seems to him the embodiment of those elusive thoughts that only people the soul by continually flitting through it.†
Chpt 34-36

unconscious = a state similar to sleep where one is unaware of anything

standard prefix: The prefix "un-" in unconscious means not and reverses the meaning of conscious. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.

How it was that they so aboundingly responded to the old man's ire—by what evil magic their souls were possessed, that at times his hate seemed almost theirs; the White Whale as much their insufferable foe as his; how all this came to be—what the White Whale was to them, or how to their unconscious understandings, also, in some dim, unsuspected way, he might have seemed the gliding great demon of the seas of life,—all this to explain, would be to dive deeper than Ishmael can go.†
Chpt 40-42

And though, doubtless, some at least of the imaginative impressions about to be presented may have been shared by most men, yet few perhaps were entirely conscious of them at the time, and therefore may not be able to recall them now.†
Chpt 40-42

Having impulsively, it is probable, and perhaps somewhat prematurely revealed the prime but private purpose of the Pequod's voyage, Ahab was now entirely conscious that, in so doing, he had indirectly laid himself open to the unanswerable charge of usurpation; and with perfect impunity, both moral and legal, his crew if so disposed, and to that end competent, could refuse all further obedience to him, and even violently wrest from him the command.†
Chpt 46-48

At any time it is a strange sight to the tyro to see with what wondrous habitude of unconscious skill the whaleman will maintain an erect posture in his boat, even when pitched about by the most riotously perverse and cross-running seas.†
Chpt 46-48

unconscious = a state similar to sleep where one is unaware of anything

standard prefix: The prefix "un-" in unconscious means not and reverses the meaning of conscious. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.

Now then, thought I, unconsciously rolling up the sleeves of my frock, here goes for a cool, collected dive at death and destruction, and the devil fetch the hindmost.†
Chpt 49-51

unconsciously = not in a self-aware manner

standard prefix: The prefix "un-" in unconsciously means not and reverses the meaning of consciously. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky. Also note that while many people use this as a synonym for subconsciously, experts in the mind may distinguish a difference.

And often you will notice that being conscious of the eyes of the whole visible world resting on him from the sides of the two ships, this standing captain is all alive to the importance of sustaining his dignity by maintaining his legs.†
Chpt 52-54

No resolution could withstand it; in that dreamy mood losing all consciousness, at last my soul went out of my body; though my body still continued to sway as a pendulum will, long after the power which first moved it is withdrawn.†
Chpt 61-63

But if you now come to separate these two objects, and surround each by a circle of profound darkness; then, in order to see one of them, in such a manner as to bring your mind to bear on it, the other will be utterly excluded from your contemporary consciousness.†
Chpt 73-75

Looking over the side, they saw the before lifeless head throbbing and heaving just below the surface of the sea, as if that moment seized with some momentous idea; whereas it was only the poor Indian unconsciously revealing by those struggles the perilous depth to which he had sunk.†
Chpt 76-78

unconsciously = not in a self-aware manner

standard prefix: The prefix "un-" in unconsciously means not and reverses the meaning of consciously. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky. Also note that while many people use this as a synonym for subconsciously, experts in the mind may distinguish a difference.

Starting from a brief standing sleep, I was horribly conscious of something fatally wrong.†
Chpt 94-96

The jaw-bone tiller smote my side, which leaned against it; in my ears was the low hum of sails, just beginning to shake in the wind; I thought my eyes were open; I was half conscious of putting my fingers to the lids and mechanically stretching them still further apart.†
Chpt 94-96

Unconsciously my chirography expands into placard capitals.†
Chpt 103-105

unconsciously = not in a self-aware manner

standard prefix: The prefix "un-" in unconsciously means not and reverses the meaning of consciously. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky. Also note that while many people use this as a synonym for subconsciously, experts in the mind may distinguish a difference.

Then unconsciously using the musket for a staff, with an iron brow he paced to and fro in the little cabin; but presently the thick plaits of his forehead relaxed, and returning the gun to the rack, he went to the deck.†
Chpt 109-111

But few thoughts of Pan stirred Ahab's brain, as standing like an iron statue at his accustomed place beside the mizen rigging, with one nostril he unthinkingly snuffed the sugary musk from the Bashee isles (in whose sweet woods mild lovers must be walking), and with the other consciously inhaled the salt breath of the new found sea; that sea in which the hated White Whale must even then be swimming.†
Chpt 109-111 *

There is no steady unretracing progress in this life; we do not advance through fixed gradations, and at the last one pause:—through infancy's unconscious spell, boyhood's thoughtless faith, adolescence' doubt (the common doom), then scepticism, then disbelief, resting at last in manhood's pondering repose of If.†
Chpt 112-114

unconscious = a state similar to sleep where one is unaware of anything

standard prefix: The prefix "un-" in unconscious means not and reverses the meaning of conscious. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.

Like machines, they dumbly moved about the deck, ever conscious that the old man's despot eye was on them.†
Chpt 130-132

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Best Example Sentences
From Other Sources
Grouped by 5 Meanings

Definitions:

(1) (conscious as in: conscious after the operation)
awake (not asleep or in a state similar to sleep where one is unaware of anything)
(2) (conscious as in: a conscious effort to lose weight)
intentional (done on purpose) -- perhaps with significant effort
(3) (conscious as in: environmentally conscious)
aware or concerned about something
(4) (conscious as in: the conscious mind)
mental activity of which one is self-aware
(5) (conscious as in: conscious life on other planets)
capable of thought, self-reflection, and will

Page Numbers by Book Edition

conscious in Moby Dick

conscious
in
Moby Dick