common sense meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

common sense

nounalso spelled common-sense

Etymology Calque of Middle French sens commun and its source, Latin sēnsus commūnis, itself a calque of Ancient Greek κοινὴ αἴσθησις (koinḕ aísthēsis).

Ordinary sensible understanding; one's basic intelligence which allows for plain understanding and without which good decisions or judgments cannot be made.

To act with common sense, according to the moment, is the best wisdom I know; and the best philosophy, to do one's duties, take the world as it comes, submit respectfully to one's lot, bless the goodness that has given us so much happiness with it, whatever it is, and despise affectation.1776, Horace Walpole, Letter to Sir Horace Mann:
While there are not yet studies to prove it, common sense tells us that a stressed and sick animal is not an ideal candidate to eventually make a healthy meal.2018, Kristin Lawless, Formerly known as food, →ISBN, page 52:

1 more example

Common sense, by contrast to self-attentiveness, involves other-attentiveness, as a person pays attention to the social world around them and to the structure of tacit meanings that others impart through the use of utterances and embodied conduct. […] Common sense as other-attentiveness means that a participant pays attention to another’s world as a condition for bespeaking one’s own.2022, Douglas W. Maynard, Jason Turowetz, “Autistic Intelligence as Uncommon Sense”, in Autistic Intelligence – Interaction, Individuality, and the Challenges of Diagnosis, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, →DOI, →ISBN, page 81:

Human sciences, Philosophy, Sciences One of the four interior senses; the one by which information from the five exterior senses is understood and interpreted.

This common ſenſe is the Iudge or Moderator of the reſt, by whom we diſcerne all differences of obiects; for by mine eye I doe not knowe that I ſee, or by mine eare that I heare, but by my common ſenſe, […]1621, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], “Of the Inward Senses”, in The Anatomy of Melancholy, […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and Iames Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition 1, section 1, member 2, subsection 7, page 35:

Synonyms: cop on, good sense, horse sense, mother wit, native wit
Derived terms: common sense is neither common nor sensical, Common Sense Revolution, commonsensible, commonsensibly, commonsensical, commonsensically
Related terms: common knowledge, conventional wisdom, critical thinking

common-sense

noun

Dated Dated form of common sense.

In fact, such unfortunate persons have no resource but to become what we call Pedants; to ensconce themselves in a safe world of habitudes, of applicable or inapplicable traditions; not coveting, rather avoiding the general daylight of common-sense, as very extraneous to them and their procedure; by long persistence in which course they become Completed Pedants, hidebound, impenetrable, able to defy the hostile extraneous element; an alarming kind of men1850 April 1, Thomas Carlyle, “No. III. Downing Street.”, in Latter-Day Pamphlets, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, page 83:
This he unquestionably did not do, and yet we are asked to give a hearing to an American lawyer, who, nearly three centuries after Bacon’s death, chooses first to imagine that Bacon wrote the immortal plays, and then to assure us that, instead of placing the fact upon record as any man of common-sense would be sure to do, Bacon wrapt up his secret in a cryptogram, of which he did not even leave the key—a cryptogram distributed in a most mystical and bewildering way through the bad printing of the first folio, and which it was left for Mr Donnelly’s laborious and perverted ingenuity to discover.1888 February, Theodore Martin, “Shakespeare or Bacon?”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CXLIII, number DCCCLXVIII, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood & Sons, […], pages 271–272:

4 more examples

At breakfast, and while they were packing the few remaining articles, he showed his weariness from the night’s effort so unmistakeably that Tess was on the point of revealing all that had happened; but the reflection that it would anger him, grieve him, stultify him, to know that he had instinctively manifested a fondness for her of which his common-sense did not approve; that his inclination had compromised his dignity when reason slept, again deterred her.1891, Thomas Hardy, chapter XXXVII, in Tess of the d’Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented […], volume II, London: James R[ipley] Osgood, McIlvaine and Co., […], →OCLC, phase the fifth (The Woman Pays), page 248:
He mistrusted my youth, my common-sense, and my seamanship, and made a point of showing it in a hundred little ways.1898 September, Joseph Conrad, “Youth: a Narrative”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXIV, number DCCCCXCV, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publication Co., page 311, column 1:
It will scarcely be believed that this heavy burden is sought to be discharged in a way which would meet with very short shrift in any judicial tribunal, or, for the matter of that, in any tribunal presided over by sound common-sense and judgment.1901 September 16, Pherozeshah M[erwanjee] Mehta, “Third Letter on the Land Revenue Bill. To the Editor of the Times of India.”, in C[hirravoori] Y[ajneswara] Chintamani, editor, Speeches and Writings of the Honourable Sir Pherozeshah M. Mehta, K.C.I.E., Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh: The Indian Press, published 1905, →OCLC, page 708:
Now I’m sure our Patty, being of proper common-sense and sound judgment, wouldn’t put the Elliott family to such inconvenience,—for moving is a large and fearsome proposition.1904, Carolyn Wells, “The Decision”, in Patty at Home, New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead & Company, →OCLC, page 17: