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:
Competing as “A Dumb Reporter” with a fictional $1 million, I challenged Grok and felt pretty smug early on.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 18, 2026
You can see this smug ease in Citi’s Panic/Euphoria Model External link, a gauge of sentiment now called the Levkovich Index.
From Barron's ● Jun. 10, 2026
When I say good, I don’t mean smug or perfect.
From Slate ● May 10, 2026
If you are one of those feeling smug because you predicted this, did you take pleasure in the 4-0 defeat four years ago, or the 4-0 before that, or the 5-0 before that?
From BBC ● Dec. 25, 2025
I recognize the more smug voice—Penda—when she speaks.
From "Beasts of Prey" by Ayana Gray
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
The Kenwigses, with whom Nicholas boards for a spell, are even smugger and snugger: more than a dozen Kenwigses and friends squeeze nightly into their snuffbox-size parlor.
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
"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
So Goldman Sachs, the world's greatest and smuggest investment bank, has been sued for fraud by the American Securities and Exchange Commission.
From The Guardian ● Apr. 23, 2010
At the rate they are going they may win, by more than a nose, the crown as smuggest.
From Time Magazine Archive
One was n't in the least surprised when an English voice, proceeding from the smuggest of smooth-shaven English countenances, informed my lord that luncheon was served.
From The Lady Paramount by Harland, Henry
Definitions 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.
