smug
Pronunciation: /smʌɡ/
The English word “smug” has 8 meanings listed here.
adjective
- Irritatingly pleased with oneself; offensively self-complacent, self-satisfied.
- Showing smugness; showing self-complacency, self-satisfaction.
- Studiously neat or nice, especially in dress; spruce; affectedly precise; smooth and prim.
verb
- To make smug, or spruce.
- to adopt an offensively self-complacent expression.
- To seize; to confiscate.
- To hush up.
noun
Etymology
Originally "spruce, neat," from Low German smuk (“pretty”), from Middle Low German smuk (“lithe, delicate, neat, trim”), although the g of the English word is not easily explained. The ultimate source should be Proto-West Germanic *smeugan (“to crawl, creep”). From the Low German derived also North Frisian smok, Danish smuk and Swedish smukk (now obsolete or dialectal). Compare also Middle High…
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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.