self-satisfied
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of self-satisfied
First recorded in 1725–35
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.
Mr. Holmes shows how the unstable and morose Tennyson, born in the wild Romantic age of Byron, Coleridge and Shelley, grew into the settled and self-satisfied voice of Victorian England.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 20, 2026
Several of the figures rest a self-satisfied hand at the apex of their bump.
From Slate ● Jul. 21, 2025
My sermon — which I would deliver sloppily in the smoking section at parties, annoyingly self-satisfied and convinced that I had figured it all out — became this: If you’re cool now, you’re cool forever.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 8, 2025
He’s calm, even a little self-satisfied, as he invites someone to “Feel it all around you/Crash and fall.”
From New York Times ● Apr. 19, 2024
“I think we have them,” he said with a self-satisfied air.
From "Dragonwings" by Laurence Yep
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.
