SELF-CONSCIOUS

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does self-conscious mean? 

• SELF-CONSCIOUS (adjective)
  The adjective SELF-CONSCIOUS has 2 senses:

1. aware of yourself as an individual or of your own being and actions and thoughts

2. excessively and uncomfortably conscious of your appearance or behavior

  Familiarity information: SELF-CONSCIOUS used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SELF-CONSCIOUS (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Aware of yourself as an individual or of your own being and actions and thoughts

Synonyms:

self-aware; self-conscious

Context example:

self-conscious about their roles as guardians of the social values

Similar:

conscious (knowing and perceiving; having awareness of surroundings and sensations and thoughts)

Derivation:

self-consciousness (self-awareness plus the additional realization that others are similarly aware of you)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Excessively and uncomfortably conscious of your appearance or behavior

Context example:

wondered if she could ever be untidy without feeling self-conscious about it

Similar:

uncomfortable (conducive to or feeling mental discomfort)

Derivation:

self-consciousness (embarrassment deriving from the feeling that others are critically aware of you)

 Context examples 

Also, he was rendered self-conscious by the company.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Genius is said to be self-conscious.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Furthermore, he got over being awkward and self-conscious.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

If you become anxious and extremely self-conscious in everyday social situations, you could have a social phobia.

(Phobias, NIH: National Institute of Mental Health)

I cannot tell whether Miss Ingram was a genius, but she was self-conscious—remarkably self-conscious indeed.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

He was keenly sensitive, hopelessly self-conscious, and the amused glance that the other stole privily at him over the top of the letter burned into him like a dagger-thrust.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

He caught a glimpse of that pathetic figure of him, so long ago, a self-conscious savage, sprouting sweat at every pore in an agony of apprehension, puzzled by the bewildering minutiae of eating-implements, tortured by the ogre of a servant, striving at a leap to live at such dizzy social altitude, and deciding in the end to be frankly himself, pretending no knowledge and no polish he did not possess.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)