smug
Americanadjective
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contentedly confident of one's ability, superiority, or correctness; complacent.
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trim; spruce; smooth; sleek.
adjective
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excessively self-satisfied or complacent
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archaic trim or neat
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of smug
First recorded in 1545–55; perhaps from Middle Dutch smuc “neat, pretty, nice”
Explanation
A smug person is self-satisfied. You can usually recognize someone who is pleased with himself by his smug little smile and self-righteous remarks. Smug is the opposite of modest and unsure. In cartoons, the smug character often walks around with his chest puffed out and his ego leading the way. “Too much good fortune can make you smug and unaware,” thought Rachel Field, the children’s author. What she means is that successes are appreciated much more when they don't come so often that you begin to feel entitled to them.
Vocabulary lists containing smug
The SAT: Words to Capture Tone, List 3
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The New SAT: Words to Capture Tone
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List 7
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
As the government prosecutor, Norwegian actor Christian Rubeck gives a smug and condescending tone to nearly every word out of his mouth, becoming the closest thing the movie has to a villain.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 9, 2026
It could seem "smug" or like you are "trying too hard", says director Rupert Wesson.
From BBC ● Aug. 17, 2026
Swanning around that flawless midcentury lair in bucolic Southern California, smug land of the $22 smoothie, the 3 p.m. goat yoga class, and the unwanted, inexplicable reboot.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 3, 2026
When I say good, I don’t mean smug or perfect.
From Slate ● May 10, 2026
“You are looking very smug, Helena,” Louise remarked.
From "Secrets at Sea" by Richard Peck
But that movie, for all its missteps, looks increasingly like the noblest of failures, a genuinely nervy, conceptually ambitious folly from which the director has now retreated to this movie’s safer, smugger climes.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 26, 2023
Even though it is 75% smugger than it needs to be.
From The Guardian ● May 23, 2018
Instead, today’s bad mommies are as smug, and even sometimes smugger, than those good mommies they aimed to resist.
From Salon ● Feb. 17, 2014
A kind of Miss Lonelyhearts in reverse, the hero is a successful writer of sentimental pap for Catholic publications, who begins to lose his sincerity in the smugger swamps of suburbia.
From Time Magazine Archive
Hermione’s expression could not have been any smugger; she had loathed being outperformed in every Potions class.
From "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" by J.K. Rowling
Some have called it the "smuggest TikTok trend yet".
From BBC ● Jan. 13, 2023
Blinking into the sun from the comfort of his very own swaddle, Buster was the smuggest schnauzer I’d ever seen.
From The Guardian ● Apr. 19, 2019
"I feel crap," confessed Morgan Parra, while the smuggest smiles were on the faces of Fabien Barcella and William Servat, whose recovering injuries allowed them to do no more than prepare the barbecue.
From The Guardian ● Aug. 3, 2011
At the rate they are going they may win, by more than a nose, the crown as smuggest.
From Time Magazine Archive
But the Phoenix would only smile its smuggest smile and tell him to "wait and see, wait and see"—which almost drove David mad.
From David and the Phoenix by Joan Raysor
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
