conscientious
careful and guided by duty or conscience
Roots
- -ous / -ious: full of or marked by a quality
- com-: with, together, complete, or intensified
- sci / scire: know, understand, or be aware
Other words with the sci / scire root
- conscience: inner sense of right and wrong
- conscious: awake or aware
- prescience: knowledge of events before they happen
- prescient: seeming to know what will happen before it does
- science: organized knowledge tested by observation
Conscience anchors conscientious: careful because the inner judge is awake.
A conscientious student checked the confusing instructions before submitting the form.
Conscientious is care with a moral backbone. It is not mere neatness; it is the kind of carefulness that comes from wanting to do the thing properly.