complacency

American  

[kuhm-pley-suhn-see] / kəmˈpleɪ sən si /

Also complacence

noun

• complacencies
  plural

1. 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.

2. Archaic.

   1. friendly civility; inclination to please; complaisance.

   2. a civil act.

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complacency British  

/ kəmˈpleɪsənsɪ /

noun

1. a feeling of satisfaction, esp extreme self-satisfaction; smugness

2. an obsolete word for complaisance

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• noncomplacence
  noun
• noncomplacency
  noun
• overcomplacence
  noun
• overcomplacency
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• complacencies
  plural

Etymology

Origin of complacency

From the Medieval Latin word complacentia, dating back to 1635–45. See complacent, -cy

Explanation

The word complacency is often hurled, in a rather scornful manner, at people who are unwilling to be political. It connotes a sense of ease and contentment with the status quo. It is a rare thing to hear the word complacency used in a purely positive way; there's always a sense of scolding to it. At best it's used to convey a person's satisfaction: "Oh? No one asked you to the prom? I've been asked three times," she said with complacency. More commonly, however, it takes on a political tone, as with large bodies of people who are unwilling to protest corruption because it doesn't touch them: "He preached and argued, but it was impossible to jostle the students from their complacency."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

complacency complacencies

But Mr. Blaževičius depicts with a deadpan ruthlessness the pull of complacency, the ease of lapsing back into lives full of compromise and myopia.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 20, 2026

But Grande does perpetuate a silence, complacency, and enabling by painting genuine concern as gossipy chatter.

From Salon ● Aug. 8, 2026

But Timothy Ravasi, a local marine scientist, warned against complacency.

From Barron's ● Jul. 29, 2026

After an initial splurge on travel and entertainment, retirees are often lulled into a sense of complacency because their spending tends to decrease during the first decade after leaving the workforce.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 29, 2026

Dick afterward grew fond of quoting Andrews’ reply, for it seemed to him a fine specimen of the boy’s “funny thinking,” his “off on a cloud” complacency.

From "In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote

The rudder in her work, and in her thinking, is this aversion to, and constant vigilance against, easy complacencies and groupthink.

From New York Times ● Jul. 18, 2018

“Our contexts are not the same, our struggles are not the same, and so our rebellions and complacencies and conformities and compromises cannot be compared.”

From The New Yorker ● Apr. 6, 2017

The financial crisis taught us that long-held assumptions and complacencies can and will fall apart in a subprime minute.

From BusinessWeek ● Feb. 27, 2012

Thereafter he campaigned tirelessly, and secretly, on behalf of political prisoners in the Eastern bloc and turned his public scorn against what he discerned as the hypocrisies and complacencies of the British left-wing intelligentsia.

From The Guardian ● Apr. 25, 2010

Betray’d by traitors lodged in his own breast, By sweet complacencies from virtue felt?

From Young's Night Thoughts With Life, Critical Dissertation and Explanatory Notes by Edward Young