smug-faced

Early in his Afghanistan posting he had recalled "the vivid imagery of the First World war poets," in particular Siegfried Sassoon's powerful "Suicide in the Trenches" and its "vituperative lines" to which his fellow soldiers "nodded approvingly when I managed to drag them up from memory -- 'You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye/Who cheer when soldier lads march by/Sneak home and pray you'll never know/The hell where youth and laughter go.'"

Jonathan Yardley reviews "The Junior Officers' Reading Club" 2010

Alas, Sindy was also a boring smug-faced middle-class munter, with the depressingly realistic body shape of Camilla Parker Bowles, manky hair and the dullest wardrobe this side of the Cabinet.

Archive 2008-12-01 juliette 2008

Alas, Sindy was also a boring smug-faced middle-class munter, with the depressingly realistic body shape of Camilla Parker Bowles, manky hair and the dullest wardrobe this side of the Cabinet.

Twats and Bratz juliette 2008

“You smug-faced crowds”: Siegfried Sassoon, “Suicide in the Trenches,” from Counter-attack and Other Poems (1918).

Castles of Steel Massie, Robert K., 1929- 2003

Or, again, you select some common, smug-faced Clergyman, capable, no doubt, if he were left alone, of guiding his flock quietly into the strait paths of goodness and humility.

Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, September 17, 1892 Various

And then that smug-faced, smooth-tongued, dirty-looking chaplain, with his second-hand shirt collars and slopshop morality -- was it whiskey or brandy that his breath smelt oftenest of?

The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 Devoted To Literature And National Policy Various

He shouted for his servant, who had to be fetched from the boma -- a smug-faced little rascal, obviously in love with the glory reflected on the sergeant-major's servant.

The Ivory Trail Mundy, Talbot, 1879-1940 1920

It pleased me, in effect, to play out the comedy, smug-faced and immaculate, -- for the time.

Gallantry Dizain des Fetes Galantes James Branch Cabell 1918

"Damn you, with your smug-faced husband there, and your fine auto and all, butting into poor folks 'troubles!" shrieked Dlorus.

Free Air Sinclair Lewis 1918

And this swollen, smug-faced intruder looked a particularly offensive specimen of his kind.

Average Jones Samuel Hopkins Adams 1914