complacency
a feeling of quiet pleasure or security, often while unaware of some potential danger, defect, or the like; self-satisfaction or smug satisfaction with an existing situation, condition, etc.
Archaic.
friendly civility; inclination to please; complaisance.
a civil act.
Origin of complacency
1- Also com·pla·cence [kuhm-pley-suhns]. /kəmˈpleɪ səns/.
Other words from complacency
- non·com·pla·cence, noun
- non·com·pla·cen·cy, noun, plural non·com·pla·cen·cies.
- o·ver·com·pla·cence, noun
- o·ver·com·pla·cen·cy, noun
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use complacency in a sentence
That mix of fatigue and complacency, experts said, likely led more people to start moving about and gathering together by Labor Day.
How pandemic fatigue and polarization led to Wisconsin’s massive Covid-19 outbreak | German Lopez | October 23, 2020 | VoxThere was a certain complacency in the social sciences or academic community, the think-tank community.
Kim Stanley Robinson Holds Out Hope - Issue 90: Something Green | Liz Greene | October 7, 2020 | NautilusIn our collective experience of illness, we oscillate between anxiety and a blend of complacency and fatigue.
Thank You for the 7 PM Clapping, But Camaraderie Is Needed More Than Ever - Facts So Romantic | Ayala Danzig | October 5, 2020 | NautilusWithout condemning Krvaric before his retirement as party chair, San Diego Republicans have signaled their complacency with extremism within their ranks.
Republicans’ Relative Silence on Krvaric Video Is Deafening | Jacob Mandel | September 1, 2020 | Voice of San DiegoA politician will only be as resolute as the citizen, and Indian sensitivities have been dulled by a culture of complacence.
Seen in this light, infant mortality and the cruel wastage of disease were viewed with complacence.
The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice | Stephen LeacockIf he has painted vice and shown Satan in all his pomp, it is without the least complacence in the task.
Charles Baudelaire, His Life | Thophile GautierWhere there is the shining of the face we know there is more than forgiveness; there is favour and complacence.
Separation and Service | James Hudson TaylorThe greater the number of the too longs or the too shorts the greater his complacence in the contemplation of his labours.
Blue Goose | Frank Lewis NasonYou are not adjusting your life artistically; there is too much strain, too little warmth, too much self-complacence.
The Kempton-Wace Letters | Jack London
British Dictionary definitions for complacency
complacence
/ (kəmˈpleɪsənsɪ) /
a feeling of satisfaction, esp extreme self-satisfaction; smugness
an obsolete word for complaisance
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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