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View synonyms for complacency

complacency

[ kuhm-pley-suhn-see ]

noun

, plural com·pla·cen·cies.
  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.


complacency

/ kəmˈpleɪsənsɪ /

noun

  1. a feeling of satisfaction, esp extreme self-satisfaction; smugness
  2. an obsolete word for complaisance
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012


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Other Words From

  • noncom·placence noun
  • noncom·placen·cy noun plural noncomplacencies
  • over·com·placence noun
  • over·com·placen·cy noun
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Word History and Origins

Origin of complacency1

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

League officials and leaders of the NFL Players Association say those still playing must guard against complacency.

Although deepfakes haven’t yet become the weapons of mass disinformation that some predicted, there’s no room for complacency.

Constraints challenge teams to think divergently and avoid complacency in the ideation process.

From Fortune

There’s a clear cultural complacency with things as usual, and although disappointing, that’s not particularly surprising in a field where the vast majority just don’t understand the stakes.

As the pandemic wears on, experts worry that complacency and fatigue could further fracture an already uneven response to the disease.

In one sentence, he asserts: “Panic is worse than complacency.”

A psychiatrist who attended one such conference blamed television for the complacency.

But judging by our complacency, you would be forgiven for not knowing this.

They went out of their way to tell me how such programs “breed” complacency, laziness, and—wait for it—dependency.

This is a film that takes apart your complacency as surely as this alien world destroys Thomas Newton.

But with the immaculate conception of Mary, a being full of grace, an object of God's supreme complacency entered this world.

It hardly ruffled the calm stream of his self-complacency, and, for some reasons, he was rather glad that it had happened.

It fell, and you were made to look with complacency on objects which not long since you would have regarded with horror.

Then, in the givers and in their gifts, in the workers and in their work, the Divine heart finds infinite complacency.

Maitland regained his old self-complacency in time and was dreadfully mysterious and Maitlandish about the whole affair.

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