complacent

Borrowed from Latin complacēns (“very pleasing”), present participle of complacēre (“to please at the same time, be very pleasing”), from com- (“together”) + placēre (“to please”); see please and compare complaisant.

• IPA^(key): /kəmˈpleɪsənt/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Homophone: complaisant

complacent (comparative more complacent, superlative most complacent)

2. Uncritically satisfied with oneself or one's achievements; smug.

   He grew complacent as the years rolled on and the money rolled in.

   • 2021 June 29, Phil McNulty, “England 2-0 Germany”, in BBC Sport‎^[1]:

     England will feel confident but not complacent against Ukraine, and the shock exit of France to Switzerland shows no-one can be taken lightly.

4. Unduly unworried or apathetic with regard to a need or problem.

   He tried to paint his audience as complacent, yelling that if they weren't mad as hell then they weren't paying enough attention.

• Complacent should not be confused with its homophone, complaisant.

• smug
• self-satisfied
• placid

• complacence
• complacency

• “complacent”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “complacent”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

complacent

1. third-person plural present active indicative of complaceō