complacency
/kəmˈpleɪsənˌsiː/
complacency noun: a feeling of contented self-satisfaction, especially when unaware of upcoming trouble.
Noun
complacency (countable and uncountable, plural complacencies)
- A feeling of contented self-satisfaction, especially when unaware of upcoming trouble.
- Others proclaim the infirmities of a great man with satisfaction and complacency, if they discover none of the like in themselves.1712 January 3 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison; Richard Steele et al.], “SUNDAY, December 24, 1711”, in The Spectator, number 256; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a...
- […] looking at Mr. George Osborne's pale interesting countenance, and those beautiful black, curling, shining whiskers, which the young gentleman himself regarded with no ordinary complacency, she thought in her little heart that in His Majesty's army, or in the wide world, there never was such a...1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 5, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC
- An instance of self-satisfaction.
- Passivity as a result of contentment with the current situation.
complacency meaning in Tamil, Malayalam and Persian
complacency in Tamil
- அகமகிழ்வு, தன்னிறைவு, மெத்தனம்
complacency in Malayalam
- self-satisfaction, smugness, self-congratulation
- ആത്മസന്തുഷ്ടി, സ്വയംസംതൃപ്തി, ചാരിതാർത്ഥ്യം, കൃതകൃത്യത, കൃതകൃത്യത്വം, ആത്മസംതൃപ്തി
complacency in Persian
- feeling of self-satisfaction
- خودرضامندی xod-rezâ-mandi
Examples of complacency in a sentence
- There was something pathetic in his concentration as if his complacency, more acute than of old, was not enough to him any more.1925, F[rancis] Scott Fitzgerald, chapter 1, in The Great Gatsby, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, published 1953, →ISBN:
- "However, incidents such as the derailment at Walton-on-Thames clearly show us that there is no room for complacency."2025 March 5, “Network News: RAIB report: rail left on the track derailed train travelling at 85mph”, in RAIL, number 1030, page 13:
Forms of complacency
| plural | complacencies |
|---|---|
| alternative form (archaic) | complacence |
Origin of complacency
Late Middle English complacence, from Late Latin complacentia. Compare French complaisance.
Words formed from complacency
Questions about complacency
- What does complacency mean?
- Complacency means a feeling of contented self-satisfaction, especially when unaware of upcoming trouble.
- What is complacency in Tamil?
- Complacency in Tamil is அகமகிழ்வு, தன்னிறைவு, மெத்தனம். See Complacency meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use complacency in a sentence?
- There was something pathetic in his concentration as if his complacency, more acute than of old, was not enough to him any more.
- What part of speech is complacency?
- Complacency is a noun.
- How do you pronounce complacency?
- Complacency is pronounced /kəmˈpleɪsənˌsiː/.
- What is the plural of complacency?
- The plural of complacency is complacencies.
Words near complacency in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: complacency (page history and authors); complacency (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); complacency (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-complacency.wav.
Cite this entry: “complacency.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/complacency. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.