Complacent, Complaisant

It’s easy to mix up these two words, but there’s a world of difference in their meanings.

Complacent means self-satisfied or smug and derives in part from the Latin verb placere (to please). Example:

He felt complacent about his excellent examination results.

Complaisant, on the other hand, means eager to please or obliging. An example of its use is:

He had thought she might oppose him, but found that she was surprisingly complaisant.

Sharon on August 29, 2008 Subscribe to our RSS Feed

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Toga on August 29th, 2008 12:57 pm

Thanks for your information
Brad K. on August 29th, 2008 2:40 pm

I wonder if compliant is a corruption of complaisant? Interesting.
RickMinor on August 29th, 2008 5:23 pm

Good Morning, Now I am really confused. I guess my example would be: If I am speaking with two different employees and I tell one that they are complacent and the other that they are complaisant I will get the same negative response from both, even though I have two different meanings in mind. To further muddle the issue, Answer.com gives both meanings for the word complacent. Is there much usage of the word complaisant? Quite honestly, I’ve never encountered the word before today.

Thank you,
Rick
Sharon Hurley Hall on August 30th, 2008 12:23 pm

Brad, compliant comes from the Latin for ‘to complete’ and the dictionary of etymology lists ‘be complaisant with’ as one of the meanings for comply.

Rick, I don’t hear the word much, but I do see it in books. According to Collins English Dictionary, the use of ‘complacent’ as a synonym for ‘complaisant’ is obsolete.
norhatom on September 3rd, 2008 12:14 am

Brad,
well the two words are pronunced slightly the same. Many of us and even students especially may not notice this.This will further confuse learners especially 2nd language learners. What do you think?