smug

Possibly from Middle Low German smuk (“lithe, delicate, neat, trim”) although the g of the English word is not easily explained. From the Low German derived also North Frisian smok, Danish smuk and Swedish smukk (now obsolete or dialectal). The ultimate source should be Proto-Germanic *smeuganą.

Compare 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.

• enPR: smŭg, IPA^(key): /smʌɡ/
• Rhymes: -ʌɡ

smug (comparative smugger, superlative smuggest)

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

   Kate looked extremely smug this morning.

2. (obsolete) Studiously neat or nice, especially in dress; spruce; affectedly precise; smooth and prim.
   • Robynson (More's Utopia)

     They be so smug and smooth.

   • De Quincey

     the smug and scanty draperies of his style

   • Beaumont and Fletcher

     A young, smug, handsome holiness has no fellow.

• gloaty
• self-satisfied
• complacent
• See also Thesaurus:arrogant

• smugly
• smugness

smug (third-person singular simple present smugs, present participle smugging, simple past and past participle smugged)

1. (obsolete, transitive) To make smug, or spruce.
   • Dryton

     Thus said, he smugged his beard, and stroked up fair.

2. (obsolete, transitive) To seize; to confiscate.
3. (obsolete, transitive, slang) To hush up.

• smug in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• smug in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

• Gums, MGUs, gums, mugs

• smau (Nynorsk also)

From the verb smyge

smug n (definite singular smuget, indefinite plural smug, definite plural smuga or smugene)

1. an alley or alleyway (usually for pedestrians)

• “smug” in The Bokmål Dictionary.