COMPLACENT

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does complacent mean? 

• COMPLACENT (adjective)
  The adjective COMPLACENT has 1 sense:

1. contented to a fault with oneself or one's actions

  Familiarity information: COMPLACENT used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• COMPLACENT (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Contented to a fault with oneself or one's actions

Synonyms:

complacent; self-complacent; self-satisfied

Context example:

his self-satisfied dignity

Similar:

content; contented (satisfied or showing satisfaction with things as they are)

Derivation:

complacence; complacency (the feeling you have when you are satisfied with yourself)

 Context examples 

His insufferable smile was more complacent than ever.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The Doctor, with a complacent smile, was reading aloud some manuscript explanation or statement of a theory out of that interminable Dictionary, and she was looking up at him.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Instead of speaking, I smiled; and not a very complacent or submissive smile either.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Judge Blount ably seconded him, and Martin, whose ears had pricked at the first mention of the philosopher's name, listened to the judge enunciate a grave and complacent diatribe against Spencer.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

He cowered in the midst of the milky water, as though the vastness were pressing in upon him with overwhelming force, brutally crushing him with its complacent awfulness.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

Catherine trembled at the emphasis with which he spoke, and sat pale and breathless, in a most humble mood, concerned for his children, and detesting old chests; and the general, recovering his politeness as he looked at her, spent the rest of his time in scolding his daughter for so foolishly hurrying her fair friend, who was absolutely out of breath from haste, when there was not the least occasion for hurry in the world: but Catherine could not at all get over the double distress of having involved her friend in a lecture and been a great simpleton herself, till they were happily seated at the dinner-table, when the general's complacent smiles, and a good appetite of her own, restored her to peace.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

I was interested as to which quatrain he would like best, and was not surprised when he hit upon the one born of an instant’s irritability, and quite at variance with the Persian’s complacent philosophy and genial code of life:

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

He did not give the complacent wraith any name, but he took her for his heroine and grew quite fond of her, as well he might, for he gifted her with every gift and grace under the sun, and escorted her, unscathed, through trials which would have annihilated any mortal woman.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

“Janet!” cried my aunt, with the same complacent triumph that I had remarked before.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I really don't object to platitudes, he told Ruth later; but what worries me into nervousness is the pompous, smugly complacent, superior certitude with which they are uttered and the time taken to do it.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)