Complacent

Complaisant or Complacent?

The homophones complaisant and complacent are often confused - and no wonder. Not only do they look and sound alike, but they also both derive ultimately from Latin complacēre, meaning "to please greatly." Complacent usually means "self-satisfied" or "unconcerned," but it also shares with complaisant the sense of "marked by an inclination to please or oblige." This sense of complacent is an old one, but that hasn't kept language critics from labeling it as an error - and on the whole, modern writers do prefer complaisant for this meaning. Conversely, complaisant is sometimes mistakenly used in contexts such as "complaisant about injustices," where complacent, with its sense of "marked by self-satisfaction especially when accompanied by unawareness of actual dangers or deficiencies," should go. One aid is to remember that with the preposition "about," you probably want complacent.

Examples of complacent in a Sentence

… I gazed at my mother's poised, beautiful profile as her face turned from side to side, calm or complacent, accepting what the route offered. — Donald Hall, Atlantic, October 1996 Mr. Davis organized his second great quintet in the mid-60's, but by then jazz had taken a new turn and many felt he had become passé, a complacent peacock. — Gary Giddins, New York Times Book Review, 15 Oct. 1989 … he hopes to break through the reader's complacent indifference, make him aware of his predicament, and force him to take sides. — Monroe K. Spears, American Ambitions, 1987 Lord Lathkill … was so completely unostentatious, so very willing to pay all the attention to me, and yet so subtly complacent, so unquestionably sure of his position. — D. H. Lawrence, The Complete Short Stories Volume III, (1922) 1981 The strong economy has made people complacent. We have grown too complacent over the years. We can't afford to be complacent about illiteracy.

Recent Examples on the Web Many of the speakers noted that Biden's presidency brings a new sense of relief for Muslim Americans but also warned of the difficult work that lies ahead to undo the effects of Trump's actions, saying that now isn't the time to be complacent. — Maya Rao, Star Tribune, "Biden acts to reverse immigration restrictions, open up new pathways to citizenship," 20 Jan. 2021 To look at the results and to feel good about them would open the door for complacency, and to be complacent would be to cheat the entire system that got you to those results in the first place. — Luke Johnson, NOLA.com, "The Saints defense has focused on the small things, which has resulted in big things," 8 Jan. 2021 Minneapolis defense lawyer Julie Loftus Nelson, who worked with Bruno for years, said her mentor never got complacent. — Maryjo Webster, Star Tribune, "© 2020 StarTribune. All rights reserved.," 26 Sep. 2017 However, the Chiefs at times appear to get bored or complacent and don’t always play to their full potential until the pressure reaches a boiling point. — Mike Jones, USA TODAY, "Opinion: Despite improving to 12-1 and clinching AFC West, Kansas City Chiefs leave room for nitpicking," 13 Dec. 2020 In the front seats were two elderly passengers, one male, one female, both jolly and pink-faced, and, jammed in between them, a shaggy dog as well fed and complacent as its owners. — Steve King, Condé Nast Traveler, "Why Travelers Are Heading to France's Jura Region for Wine and Comté," 1 Dec. 2020 Six months after taking the top job at Renault SA, Luca de Meo will on Thursday unveil his turnaround plan, having concluded the French automaker has been complacent about profit for far too long. — Tara Patel, Bloomberg.com, "Renault CEO to Reveal Plan to Dig French Carmaker Out of a Rut," 13 Jan. 2021 Local leaders urged residents not to become complacent — especially because a potentially more contagious strain of the virus was detected in the United States on Tuesday. — Joshua Fechter, ExpressNews.com, "San Antonio adds more than 2,000 coronavirus cases in two days as hospitalizations continue to increase," 29 Dec. 2020 Suffice to say that California, for all its pluses, has no cause to be complacent about the future. — Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, "Column: California isn’t ‘hemorrhaging’ people, but there are reasons for concern," 24 Dec. 2020

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'complacent.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.