Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Contented self-satisfaction.
- n. Total lack of concern.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Disposition to please, or an act intended to give pleasure; friendly civility, or a civil act. See complaisance (now generally used in this sense).
- n. A feeling of quiet pleasure; satisfaction; gratification; especially, self-satisfaction.
- n. That which gives satisfaction; a cause of pleasure or joy; a comfort.
Wiktionary
- n. archaic Being complacent; a feeling of contentment or satisfaction; complacency.
- n. obsolete Pleasure, delight.
- n. obsolete Complaisance; a willingness to comply with others' wishes.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. Calm contentment; satisfaction; gratification.
- n. The cause of pleasure or joy.
- n. The manifestation of contentment or satisfaction; good nature; kindness; civility; affability.
WordNet 3.0
- n. the feeling you have when you are satisfied with yourself
Etymologies
- From mediaeval Latin complacentia, from Latin complaceo ("please"). (Wiktionary)
Examples
“In her voice and complacence she, too, showed the drill-marks of order and restraint.”
“Later, irritated by his self-satisfied complacence and after listening to a recital of how he had cornered the Klamath salmon – packing, planted the first oysters on the bay and established that lucrative monopoly, and of how, after exhausting litigation and a campaign of years he had captured the water front of Williamsport and thereby won to control of the Lumber Combine, she returned to the charge.”
“If we're doing well, our over-confidence can devolve into complacence, thinking that our future will continue on the same trajectory as our past.”
The Huffington Post: Ron Ashkenas: When the Invincible Become "Vincible"
“In this case, however, community complacence hasn't really panned out for Valley Vista.”
The Huffington Post: Sam McPheeters: Trashing East L.A. County
“Mostly, we act with simple complacence in the midst of the cruelties to women's gender.”
“Martin grinned and accepted the invitation, marvelling the while at his complacence.”
“You are not adjusting your life artistically; there is too much strain, too little warmth, too much self-complacence.”
“Jones clearly felt that certain teams -- such as the Bengals, Bills, and Jaguars -- were not sufficiently aggressive in pursuing local revenues and that their complacence should not be rewarded with equal shares of national revenues.”
“Words are slaves, noetic myrmidons laboring to interdigitate bolides of inspiration with cosmeticized complacence.”
“It was out of my own hurt — an effort to bear it with philosophical complacence.”
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