complacent

Definitions  ·  Examples  ·  Pronunciations  ·  Etymologies  ·  Related  ·  Statistics  ·  Comments  · 
“
Oh, what did it matter what you called it,--complacent or not, if you knew!

View all »
Definitions (6)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. adjective Contented to a fault; self-satisfied and unconcerned: He had become complacent after years of success.
  2. adjective Eager to please; complaisant.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (2)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (1)

Toggle elsewhere links Elsewhere on the web

View all »
Examples (50)

  • But the Rams appeared to grow complacent, and the feisty Bulldogs scrapped and clawed their way back into the game, little by little.
  • Niranjan Rajadhyaksha warns in Mint that there is a danger that our economic growth rate will make us complacent, and blind us to the necessity of future reforms. —  thecookscottage
  • His interest in religion was not at all complacent -- as James Woods famously argued -- rather, it was, like his work, a testament to his unfailing curiosity and awareness of grace. —  Faithful Progressive
  • "We were just complacent, and they were the aggressor the whole game." —  NewsObserver.com - Home
  • When people get comfortable and complacent, they get stupid (er). —  A Whole Lotta Nothing
More examples »
 

Tags

complacent hasn't been tagged yet.

Sign up or sign in to add tags.

Stats

This word has been looked up 225 times.

stop updating
On Twitter

Photos from

flickr images

Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Latin complacēns, complacent-, present participle of complacēre, to please : com-, intensive pref.; see com- + placēre, to please; see plāk-1 in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. = French complaisant = Spanish complaciente = Portuguese complacente = Italian compiacente, from Latin complacen(t-)s, very pleasing, present participle of complacere, please at the same time (later Italian compiacere = Spanish Portuguese complacer = French complaire, please), be very pleasing (the English sense ‘pleased’ due rather to complacence, q. v.), from com-, together, + placere, please: see please, and cf. complaisant, which is a doublet of complacent.
 

Pronunciations
Record your own »
/kəmˈpleɪsənt/
by American Heritage

Charts
frequency chart

Bubble size: how much this word was used in a year

Bubble height: used more or less than expected, vs. all uses evenly distributed

You can expect to see this word about once a week.

Recently looked up

putatively · nincompoops · prince · possum · enfranchise

Recent Favorites

pygopagus · sanglant · Astacus · sweetbread · qualms

Recent Pronunciations

these grunts every eight hours · haul it off to our darkest dungeon · send for a doctor · forget what witticism you were originally going to insert here because you've just banged your knee on your desk · the rest will come naturally