Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of suavity
1400–50; late Middle English < Latin suāvitās pleasantness, equivalent to suāv ( is ) sweet + -itās -ity
Explanation
Suavity is the art of making people like and want to be around you, like the celebrity whose suavity helped him land great movie roles — even though he wasn't the most talented actor to audition. Suavity, pronounced "SWAH-vuh-tee," depends on saying all the right things to "get in good" with everyone around. So, though it is a graceful and often helpful thing to have suavity, it also might be a little less than real: In avoiding any topic that might get the conversation moving in a more lively and even heated direction, those who possess great suavity may also make things a little boring, fake, even. Talking about the weather and where everyone went on vacation does get a bit old.
Vocabulary lists containing suavity
The Vocabulary.com Top 1000
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"The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe
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"The Tell-Tale Heart," Vocabulary from the short story
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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:
Even then, I understood that the sedulous life and inclination of the archaeologist were ill-suited to movie-spy suavity.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 31, 2026
Those dudes are trying to play the sinister “ugly American” roles, although with a singular lack of suavity and not much success.
From Salon ● Apr. 6, 2025
There was the same luxury, the same silky suavity, the same lightness in the brasses, but also more fierceness and density.
From New York Times ● Nov. 13, 2022
His filmmaking is often noted for its surgical precision, a cliché that aptly evokes the discipline of his narrative construction and the suavity of his compositions.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 23, 2022
I attended to all the ghastly formalities, and the urbane undertaker proved that his staff were afflicted—or blessed—with something of his own obsequious suavity.
From "Dracula" by Bram Stoker
Outdoors is more tractable to the director then the shifting suavities of the drawing room.
From Time Magazine Archive
Over Charity's shoulder and through the spray of the goura on her hat he saw Kedzie sharp and stark, her suavities of line and the milk-smooth fabric of her envelope.
From We Can't Have Everything by Rupert Hughes
Neither the suavities of Carteret nor the intrigues of Walpole had any chance against the set opposition which met them.
From The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D. — Volume 06 The Drapier's Letters by Jonathan Swift
Even Mrs. Dyckman was afraid of Mrs. Abby, who lacked the suavities of Wotton.
From We Can't Have Everything by Rupert Hughes
I hoped, however, like the foolish inexperienced old bachelor I am, that her feminine asperity would be tempered by the suavities of married life.
From Melomaniacs by James Huneker
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.
