COMPLACENCY • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Complacency

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/kəmplˈeɪsənsi/ Listen

noun

Complacency, Complacence n.

Calm contentment; satisfaction; gratification. "The inward complacence we find in acting reasonably and virtuously." "Others proclaim the infirmities of a great man with satisfaction and complacency, if they discover none of the like in themselves."

The cause of pleasure or joy. "O thou, my sole complacence."

The manifestation of contentment or satisfaction; good nature; kindness; civility; affability. "Complacency, and truth, and manly sweetness, Dwell ever on his tongue, and smooth his thoughts." "With mean complacence ne'er betray your trust."

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Etymology of 'Complacency'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Complacency" Quotes from Famous Books

... specimen of the explanation of a prophecy given by Lilly, and related by him with much complacency, will be sufficient to show the sort of trash by which he imposed upon the million. "In the year 1588," says he, "there was a prophecy printed in Greek characters, exactly deciphering the long troubles ...

— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... steered a sudden course among dangerous rocks and rapids and come safe through, puts in the breast of the helmsman a calm content with himself, for which no man will blame him. What in this world is there so lifts one into complacency as the doing of a bold and cool-headed thing? Let the helmsman sleep sound when he has got to land! But if his content overtake him still on the water, so that he grows blind to the treacherous currents that eddy where all looks placid to the ...

— The Dragon of Wantley - His Tale • Owen Wister

... right and proper, Miss Devon; and I thank her for her care of my interests." And Mrs. King bowed her acknowledgment of the service with a perfect castanet accompaniment, whereat Miss Cotton bridled with malicious complacency. ...

— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott

... complacency of the bashaw, who, having by this last demand used up all the grocer's cash, finished by taking possession of his cash-box ...

— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng

... business friends, eloped with the daughter of one of his benefactors and disappeared from the earth, apparently. 'Murder will out' A few years after the forger returned to the city, and established himself under an assumed name in the making of shoes, forgetting, however, to maintain complacency, and thinking that no one would recognise him. In a passion at what he considered the carelessness of one of his workmen regarding the time some work should have been delivered, he told the man he should not ...

— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin

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