self-ˈconscious, a.
[self- 1 e.]
1. a. Philos. Having consciousness of one's identity, one's actions, sensations, etc.; reflectively aware of one's actions. Also said of action, thought, etc.
| a 1688 Cudworth Treatise of Freewill (1838) 71 We are certain by inward sense that we can reflect upon our⁓selves and consider ourselves, which is a reduplication of life in a higher degree; for all cogitative beings as such are self-conscious. [1690, etc.: cf. self-consciousness 2.] 1817 Coleridge Biog. Lit. 97 An infinite yet self-conscious Creator. 1871 R. H. Hutton Ess. i. (1888) 4 So far as human action is self-conscious as well as voluntary. 1907 Illingworth Doctr. Trin. vii. 136 A person is..essentially a self-conscious subject. |
† b. Of which one is conscious in oneself. Obs.
| 1697 Dryden æneid viii. 174 My self-conscious Worth. 1824 Bentham Bk. Fallacies i. i. §2 Wks. 1843 II. 392 Self-conscious and self-avowed imbecility. |
2. Marked by undue or morbid pre-occupation with one's own personality; so far self-centred as to suppose one is the object of observation by others.
| 1834 J. S. Mill Let. 12 Jan. in Wks. (1963) XII. 208, I begin to think that instead of being, as I once thought I was, the most self-conscious person living, I am much less self-conscious now..than almost anybody. 1837 Carlyle Fr. Rev. II. iii. vii, Self-conscious, conscious of a world looking on. 1848 Thackeray Van. Fair xxiv, Their..innocence so self-conscious and self-satisfied. 1882 J. Hawthorne Fort. Fool xxxix, He was singularly free from self-consciousness; and she was so exquisitely self-conscious as completely to conceal it. 1937 ‘G. Orwell’ Road to Wigan Pier xiii. 255 Self-conscious Socialists dutifully addressing one another as ‘Comrade’. 1974 J. Irving 158-Pound Marriage ii. 42 She had never been self-conscious about what she wore. |
Hence self-ˈconsciously adv.
| a 1834 Coleridge Shaks. Lit. Rem. (1836) II. 68 A genial understanding directing self-consciously a power and an implicit wisdom deeper even than our consciousness. |