unconscious

un- +‎ conscious

• IPA^(key): /ˌʌnˈkɒnʃəs/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

unconscious (comparative more unconscious, superlative most unconscious)

1. Not awake; having no awareness.

   She lay unconscious on the floor.

2. Without directed thought or awareness.

   My sudden fright was an unconscious response.

   • 1884, Margaret Oliphant, The Wizard's Son

     It was intolerable, he felt, to sit and eat in presence of that silent figure partly turned away from him, jotting down the different amounts on a bit of paper, and absorbed in that occupation as if unconscious of his presence.

3. (sports) engaged in skilled performance without conscious control.
   • 1998, Charles Rosen, The Cockroach Basketball League, page 144:

     Sam is unconscious, filling it, drilling it from every conceivable angle. Lem is awful and Cooper seems confused. Josh shoots too often.

   • 1999, Joseph Leininger, Terry Whalin, Lessons from the Pit: A Successful Veteran of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, page 10

     "I was unconscious," the basketball player gushes. "It seemed like everything I threw up toward the basket went straight in."

   • 2002, Alexander Wolff, Big Game, Small World: A Basketball Adventure, page 292:

     Someone who has reeled off a string of baskets will say, "I was unconscious," as if he were following the Zen injunction to be mindful while suspending thought.

• (not awake; having no awareness): insentient, oblivious, out of it, out on one's feet, unaware, down for the count
• (skilled performance without conscious control): in the zone, on a roll

unconscious (plural unconsciouses)

1. (psychology) Unconscious mind

• collective unconscious

• "unconscious" in Raymond Williams, Keywords (revised), 1983, Fontana Press, page 320.