as in amenability
a desire or disposition to please
the complaisance of his girlfriend is such that she meekly goes along with everything he says
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Recent Examples of complaisance
Yet electing to be private doesn’t amount to complaisance or complicity.
—
Lesley M.m. Blume, Town & Country, 6 Dec. 2022
Sammy’s awareness of his mother’s infidelity, his father’s complaisance, and how both were relieved by his creative Boy Scout merit-badge projects and fantasies requires a separate article.
—Armond White, National Review, 16 Nov. 2022
What is lost is the look of complaisance that defines young founders looking for capital.
—Virginia Heffernan, Wired, 2 Mar. 2021
There are more emphatic reasons for the market’s complaisance.
—Jeff Sommer, New York Times, 12 Nov. 2016
Lesley M.m. Blume, Town & Country, 6 Dec. 2022
Sammy’s awareness of his mother’s infidelity, his father’s complaisance, and how both were relieved by his creative Boy Scout merit-badge projects and fantasies requires a separate article.
—Armond White, National Review, 16 Nov. 2022
What is lost is the look of complaisance that defines young founders looking for capital.
—Virginia Heffernan, Wired, 2 Mar. 2021
There are more emphatic reasons for the market’s complaisance.
—Jeff Sommer, New York Times, 12 Nov. 2016
Recent Examples of Synonyms for complaisance
Noun
-
Finance website WalletHub compared the 100 largest cities in America, looking at 19 key indicators of livability, affordability and veteran-friendliness in a new report published on Monday.—
Jordan King,
MSNBC Newsweek,
4 Nov. 2025
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For people like Wasefi, with sisters and nieces back home, no amount of tourist-friendliness can compensate for this disaster.—
Vidushi Mishti Sharma,
Rolling Stone,
24 Oct. 2025
Noun
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The farmer’s tendency to pursue high yields obscured the delicate pleasantness this grape gives when handled carefully.—
Paul Caputo,
Forbes.com,
31 Aug. 2025
Noun
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No special effects were required to trigger Curry's stark drift from amiability to horrifying emptiness.—
Randall Colburn,
Entertainment Weekly,
6 Oct. 2025
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There’s an offbeat amiability to Easy’s Waltz that wouldn’t have been possible had nearly every actor involved not been on board with the modest aims of its filmmaker.—
Richard Lawson,
HollywoodReporter,
3 Sep. 2019
Noun
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In Killers of the Flower Moon, his Ernest Burkhart starts off as a mopey, weak-minded World War One veteran, eager to do anything for his godfather uncle (Robert De Niro), but there’s still a certain likability to his dim-bulb submissiveness.—
Bilge Ebiri,
Vulture,
2 Oct. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Complaisance.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/complaisance. Accessed 3 Dec. 2025.
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