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Complacency vs Supercilious - What's the difference?

complacency | supercilious |

As a noun complacency

is a feeling of contented self-satisfaction, especially when unaware of upcoming trouble.

As an adjective supercilious is

arrogantly superior; showing contemptuous indifference; haughty.

complacency

English

Alternative forms

* complacence

Noun

(complacencies)
  • A feeling of contented self-satisfaction, especially when unaware of upcoming trouble.
  • *
  • There was something pathetic in his concentration as if his complacency , more acute than of old, was not enough to him any more. When, almost immediately, the telephone rang inside and the butler left the porch Daisy seized upon the momentary interruption and leaned toward me.
  • * Addison
  • Others proclaim the infirmities of a great man with satisfaction and complacency , if they discover none of the like in themselves.
  • An instance of self-satisfaction.
  • supercilious

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Arrogantly superior; showing contemptuous indifference; haughty.
  • * 2013 May 23, , " British Leader’s Liberal Turn Sets Off a Rebellion in His Party," New York Times (retrieved 29 May 2013):
  • Buffeted by criticism of his policy on Europe, battered by rebellion in the ranks over his bill to legalize same-sex marriage and wounded by the perception that he is supercilious , contemptuous and out of touch with mainstream Conservatism, Mr. Cameron earlier this week took the highly unusual step of sending a mass e-mail (or, as he called it, “a personal note”) to his party’s grass-roots members.
  • *
  • Now he was a sturdy, straw haired man of thirty with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner.

    Synonyms

    * See also

    Derived terms

    * superciliously * superciliousness