English Dictionary |
SMUG (smugger, smuggest)
Pronunciation (US): | (GB): |
IPA (US): |
Dictionary entry overview: What does smug mean?
• SMUG (adjective)
The adjective SMUG has 1 sense:
1. marked by excessive complacency or self-satisfaction
Familiarity information: SMUG used as an adjective is very rare.
Dictionary entry details
Declension: comparative and superlative |
Sense 1
Meaning:
Marked by excessive complacency or self-satisfaction
Synonyms:
self-satisfied; smug
Context example:
a smug glow of self-congratulation
Similar:
content; contented (satisfied or showing satisfaction with things as they are)
Derivation:
smugness (an excessive feeling of self-satisfaction)
Context examples
The particular one at which my cabman pulled up had an air of smug and demure respectability in its old-fashioned iron railings, its massive folding-door, and its shining brasswork.
(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Martin came back and looked at the beady eyes, sneering, truculent, cowardly, and there leaped into his vision, as on a screen, the same eyes when their owner was making a sale in the store below—subservient eyes, smug, and oily, and flattering.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
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