Meaning & use
complacent
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Meaning
adjectivenot comparabledisapproving
Too satisfied with success or safety, so that effort, care, or awareness decreases.
Grammar: Usually predicative: they grew complacent. Use about for the area of overconfidence.
Patterns
- complacent about something
- grow or become complacent
- too complacent to do something
The team became complacent after three easy wins and skipped practice.
Do not be complacent about online security, even if nothing bad has happened yet.
His complacent smile suggested he had not heard the criticism.
Word forms
| comparative | more complacent |
|---|---|
| superlative | most complacent |
Common combinations
- complacent about safety
- Inspectors warned that the factory had grown complacent about safety.
- dangerously complacent
- A few good reviews made the young actor dangerously complacent.
- complacent attitude
- Her complacent attitude annoyed coworkers who were still working hard.
Synonyms and how they differ
- smug
- Smug emphasizes visible self-satisfaction; complacent emphasizes the risk of stopping effort.
- self-satisfied
- Very close, but often describes a steady personality rather than a temporary lapse after success.
- overconfident
- Focuses on too much confidence in a judgment; complacent can be broader and more passive.
Opposites
Word family
- complacency noun
- The state of being complacent.
- complacently adverb
- In a complacent manner.
Commonly confused: complacent or compliant?
complacent vs compliant
Compliant means willing to obey rules; complacent means too easily satisfied with oneself.
Practice
After winning several awards, the band grew ___ and stopped rehearsing.
Choose one answer.
Complacent means dangerously satisfied after success, which explains why they stopped rehearsing. Compliant means obedient, complete is a different word, and competent would not explain losing effort.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “complacent”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.