Complacency

How to spell complacency

11 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce complacency

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does complacency mean?

1. nounA smug, uncritical satisfaction with oneself or a situation that leads to a dangerous lack of vigilance.

Complacency in a sentence

• Years of steady profits bred a dangerous complacency in senior management.

• The safety audit warned that complacency on the factory floor could cost lives.

Where does complacency come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word traces back to the Latin verb complacere, meaning 'to please greatly' or 'to be very agreeable', formed from the intensifying prefix com- and placere, 'to please'. Medieval Latin developed the noun complacentia for a feeling of pleasure or quiet satisfaction, and English adopted complacency in the seventeenth century with that original, fairly positive sense of contentment. Over time the meaning soured: the satisfied feeling came to be seen as smug, uncritical self-satisfaction that blinds a person to risk or fault. The same placere root sits behind the everyday words 'please', 'placid', and 'pleasant', which all share the idea of giving or feeling calm pleasure. The spelling trap lives in the ending, since the soft '-cency' and the choice between '-ency' and '-ancy' both invite error even though the stem clearly comes from plac.

How the word is built

• com- (intensive, thoroughly)
• plac (to please)
• -ency (noun-forming suffix denoting a state or quality)