COMPLACENCY • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Complacency

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/kəmplˈeɪsənsi/ Listen

noun

Complacency, Complacence n.

Calm contentment; satisfaction; gratification. "The inward complacence we find in acting reasonably and virtuously." "Others proclaim the infirmities of a great man with satisfaction and complacency, if they discover none of the like in themselves."

The cause of pleasure or joy. "O thou, my sole complacence."

The manifestation of contentment or satisfaction; good nature; kindness; civility; affability. "Complacency, and truth, and manly sweetness, Dwell ever on his tongue, and smooth his thoughts." "With mean complacence ne'er betray your trust."

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Etymology of 'Complacency'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Complacency" Quotes from Famous Books

... cases.' Thucydides would have had eyes for it in all its forms, mild or severe, simple or complex, pitiful or repulsive. He would show us the English upper and middle class, shaken out of its comfort and complacency, its easy and patronizing security, by the shock of war and bereavement, facing a future of unknown and terrifying ideas and forces, with the brutal tax-gatherer administering the coup de grâce to its equanimity: the working class, called to fight for a cause which it but dimly understood, in ...

— The Legacy of Greece • Various

... I'm sure," said Miss Crane, with a mixture of hauteur and complacency that was as perplexing ...

— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... be it from me to remove this veil which renders you such kind service. But, apart from this screen which the good God has placed between you and the miseries of this life, there is another of a darker and heavier shade, fabricated by the imagination, and which it draws with a perfidious complacency over the object which it behooves us the most to know and avoid—a seductive and deceitful veil which, while presenting things to us in a false light, exposes us to most deplorable ...

— Serious Hours of a Young Lady • Charles Sainte-Foi

... the motley," continued the other, not without complacency, observing the effect of his announcement on ...

— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham

... enveloped in a chapeau more or less large or small, is shocked at the first attempt to wear one of a different size; and turns from the contemplation of the image presented in the glass with any thing but self-complacency, listening incredulously to the flattering encomiums of the not disinterested marchand de modes, who avers that "Ce chapeau sied parfaitement a Madame la Comtesse, et ce bonnet lui ...

— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner

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