adjective
- excessively aware of being observed by others.
- conscious of oneself or one’s own being.
adjective
- unduly aware of oneself as the object of the attention of others; embarrassed
- conscious of one’s existence
adj.1680s, “aware of one’s action,” a word of the English Enlightenment (Locke was using it by 1690), from self- + conscious. Morbid sense of “preoccupied with one’s own personality” is attested from 1834 (in J.S. Mill). Related: Self-consciously; self-consciousness.