Standard Lemma guide

smug

adj · noun · verb · 9 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

Sound

Pronunciation

Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.

  • smŭg
  • General-American, Received-Pronunciation, Southern-England: /smʌɡ/
  • Australian, New-Zealand: /smɐɡ/
  • Australia: Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
  • Northern-England: /smʊɡ/
  • rhymes with -ʌɡ
  • CMU ARPABET: S M AH1 G Digits mark lexical stress: 1 primary, 2 secondary, 0 unstressed.

1

adj

Meaning 1

Irritatingly pleased with oneself; offensively self-complacent, self-satisfied.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Examples

  • Kate looked extremely smug this morning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: complacent, gloaty, self-satisfied, airy, arrogant, chesty, authoritarian, biggity, big-headed, blustery, boastful, lordly, bombastic, buggish, cocky, conceited, disdainful, domineering, egotistical, entitled, flatulent, flaunting, full of oneself, glorious, grandiose, hankty, haught, haughty, haut, high-handed, high-hat, high and mighty, highfalutin, hoity-toity, holier-than-thou, hubristic, hubristical, imperious, inflated, insolent, la-di-da, orgulous, ostentatious, overbearing, overweening, pompous, presumptuous, pretentious, priggish, puffed up, sanctimonious, self-important, snobbish, snooty, snotty, stout, stuck up, supercilious, thrasonic, thrasonical, toploftical, toplofty, tumid, turgid, uppish, uppity, uppy, upstage, vain

Antonyms: none provided

2

adj

Meaning 2

Showing smugness; showing self-complacency, self-satisfaction.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Examples

  • a smug look on her face

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

3

adj

Meaning 3

Studiously neat or nice, especially in dress; spruce; affectedly precise; smooth and prim.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: obsolete

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: affected, overrefined, effete, fey, recherché, hoity-toity, pansified, precious, pretentious, smug, stagy, stilted, theatrical, Woosterian

Antonyms: none provided

4

noun

Meaning 4

The smuggling trade.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: obsolete, uncountable

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

5

verb

Meaning 5

To make smug, or spruce.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: obsolete, transitive

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

6

verb

Meaning 6

to adopt an offensively self-complacent expression.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: intransitive

Examples

  • 1899 Ambrose Bierce: Fantastic Fables. Hearing a sound of strife, a Christian in the Orient asked his Dragoman the cause of it. "The Buddhists are cutting Mohammedan throats," the Dragoman replied, with oriental composure. "I did not know," remarked the Christian, with scientific interest, "that that would make so much noise." "The Mohammedans are cutting Buddhist throats, too," added the Dragoman. "It is astonishing," mused the Christian, "how violent and how general are religious animosities. Everywhere in the world the devotees of each local faith abhor the devotees of every other, and abstain from murder only so long as they dare not commit it. And the strangest thing about it is that all religions are erroneous and mischievous excepting mine. Mine, thank God, is true and benign." So saying he visibly smugged and went off to telegraph for a brigade of cutthroats to protect Christian interests.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

7

verb

Meaning 7

To seize; to confiscate.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: obsolete, slang, transitive

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

8

verb

Meaning 8

To hush up.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: obsolete, slang, transitive

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

9

adjective satellite

Meaning 9

marked by excessive complacency or self-satisfaction

Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0

Examples

  • a smug glow of self-congratulation

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: self-satisfied

Antonyms: none provided

History

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 German gesmuc (“ornament”) and smücken (“to dress, to adorn”), both ultimately from smiegen (“to press to, insert, wrap, to nestle”), hence German schmiegen, Schmuck and schmücken. The adjective schmuck, however, was borrowed from Low German. See smock for more.

Across languages

Translations

68 source translations are retained for this English entry.

  • Bulgarian: самодоволен (samodovolen) — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Catalan: ufà — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Catalan: petulant — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Literary Chinese: 躊躇 (chóuchú) — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Chinese Mandarin: 得意 (déyì) — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Chinese Mandarin: 自滿 /自满 (zìmǎn) — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Czech: nafoukaný — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Czech: samolibý — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Czech: namyšlený — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Czech: domýšlivý — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Danish: selvfed — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Danish: selvgod — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Dutch: zelfingenomen — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Faroese: sjálvglaður — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Faroese: sjálvgóður — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Finnish: omahyväinen — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Finnish: itseriittoinen — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Finnish: itsetyytyväinen — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • French: auto-satisfait — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • French: suffisant — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • French: fat — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Galician: oufano — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Galician: fachendoso — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Galician: pimpante — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Galician: xactancioso — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Galician: fanfurriñeiro — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Georgian: თვითკმაყოფილი (tvitḳmaq̇opili) — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • German: blasiert — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • German: eingebildet — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • German: selbstgefällig — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • German: süffisant — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • German: selbstzufrieden — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • German: dünkelhaft — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • German: arrogant — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • German: überheblich — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Greek: αυτάρεσκος (aftáreskos) — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Hebrew: זחוח — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Hungarian: önelégült — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Italian: compiaciuto — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Italian: autocompiaciuto — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Japanese: 独り善がり (hitoriyogari) — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Japanese: 調子に乗る (chōshi ni noru) — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Māori: whakaī — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Māori: whakakake — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Māori: whakahīhī — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Norwegian Bokmål: selvgod — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Norwegian Bokmål: selvtilfreds — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Norwegian Nynorsk: sjølvgod — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Polish: próżny — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Polish: irytująco zadowolony z siebie — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Portuguese: presunçoso — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Portuguese: convencido — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Punjabi: ਮਨਮੌਜੀ (manmaujī) — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Romanian: îngâmfat — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Russian: самодово́льный (samodovólʹnyj) — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Serbo-Croatian: samozadovoljan — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Slovak: samoľúby — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Spanish: ufano — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Spanish: engreído — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Spanish: petulante — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Spanish: creído — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Spanish: sobrado — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Spanish: fatuo — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Spanish: finchado — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Swedish: självgod — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Swedish: självbelåten — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Swedish: mallig — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied
  • Ukrainian: самовдово́лений (samovdovólenyj) — irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-satisfied