Definition of COMPLAISANT

Choose the Right Synonym for complaisant

amiable, good-natured, obliging, complaisant mean having the desire or disposition to please. amiable implies having qualities that make one liked and easy to deal with. an amiable teacher not easily annoyed good-natured implies cheerfulness or helpfulness and sometimes a willingness to be imposed upon. a good-natured girl who was always willing to pitch in obliging stresses a friendly readiness to be helpful. our obliging innkeeper found us a bigger room complaisant often implies passivity or a yielding to others because of weakness. was too complaisant to protest a decision he thought unfair

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 complaisant in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web Abe, who hosted Trump in Tokyo a month ago and has been as complaisant as any world leader in courting the unpredictable U.S. president, has little to show for his efforts. — Tracy Wilkinson, latimes.com, "Trump to meet Putin, Xi at G-20, but with unclear goals, expectations are low," 26 June 2019 Chief executives of the territory have become steadily more complaisant to China’s wishes, say critics. — Gerard Baker, WSJ, "Hong Kong’s Flickering Hopes for Freedom," 21 June 2019 Greedy club owners and complaisant sportswriters contrived a persona for him as a mash-up of Li’l Abner and Paul Bunyan, a devoted family man and humble Hall of Famer. — Edward Kosner, WSJ, "‘A Season in the Sun’ Review: Those Weren’t the Days," 12 Apr. 2018 Onstage, there was absolutely nothing complaisant about her. — Jon Pareles, New York Times, "South by Southwest Music Festival: 17 Acts That Stood Out," 18 Mar. 2018

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

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Cite this Entry

“Complaisant.” The Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster Inc., https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/complaisant. Accessed 24 January 2020.