What's the difference between conceit and smug?

Conceit


Definition:

  • (n.) That which is conceived, imagined, or formed in the mind; idea; thought; image; conception.
  • (n.) Faculty of conceiving ideas; mental faculty; apprehension; as, a man of quick conceit.
  • (n.) Quickness of apprehension; active imagination; lively fancy.
  • (n.) A fanciful, odd, or extravagant notion; a quant fancy; an unnatural or affected conception; a witty thought or turn of expression; a fanciful device; a whim; a quip.
  • (n.) An overweening idea of one's self; vanity.
  • (n.) Design; pattern.
  • (v. t.) To conceive; to imagine.
  • (v. i.) To form an idea; to think.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) No wry observations or whoops-a-daisy trombones to subvert the conceit for period lolz.
  • (2) Even a successful fiction writer would be unlikely to attempt to pull off an absurd conceit whereby the self-styled “greenest-ever” government hands out subsidies to the most heavily polluting companies just as it prepares to approve a global climate change treaty.
  • (3) In their new show , the trio Sheeps (which includes recent Foster’s award nominee Liam Williams ) perform the same sketch over and over, for an hour, in a variety of styles – the conceit being that they’re never satisfied it works.
  • (4) "That's why we developed Call of Duty Elite – the design conceit was, wouldn't it be great if we could unlock the game as a more social experience.
  • (5) He denies Southcliffe's central conceit is exploitative.
  • (6) He is far too astute an analyst of comedy to be unaware of the danger of looking smug and there were sufficient layers of irony and knowing jokes within jokes for the conceit to work.
  • (7) As those familiar with my novels know (especially Ulverton and Hodd ), I've always believed in the modernity of the past, from which our temporal conceit blinkers us.
  • (8) Then Smith ruins my conceit by grounding to Prince Fielder.
  • (9) Their music has long been free of such unnecessary clutter as metaphor, allegory, and poetic conceit.
  • (10) If he had been able to cross gorges and rivers without the need for ancient Egyptian conceits or even unadorned iron trusses, I think he would have leaped at the chance.
  • (11) So, this print version is more in name – a conceit, a promotion – than it is an actual business strategy.
  • (12) In 2014, RZA told Forbes that the conceit behind the album was in part motivated by a desire to restore a cash value to music in the age of streaming and internet piracy.
  • (13) It’s a fun conceit.” Just because Baker Street Irregulars members don’t emphasize costumes and cosplay, they still respect their fellow fandoms – there is even a Klingon edition of Sherlock Holmes.
  • (14) I like the conceit but I don't buy the translation: animals have fur, women wear furs, surely).
  • (15) Men's concerns, interests, anxieties or even pride in our own gender roles are typically sheltered by the conceits of fiction – as seen in the exquisite 62-hour thesis on modern masculinity that was Breaking Bad – or filtered through protective layers of irony and humour.Social media users recently parodied the internal travails of feminism with the hashtag #MeninistTwitter, but behind the walls of laddish banter and sexism, there were some very real anxieties and resentments on display.
  • (16) The vox pop – that spurious journalistic conceit – lets reporters seek out quotes to confirm each one's opinions (or for the BBC, just a meaningless one of each).
  • (17) This is not the first time we have seen arrogance and conceit from Mr Mellor.
  • (18) "You could see the little girls, fat with complacency and conceit while the little boys sat there crumpled, apologising for their existence, thinking this was going to be the pattern of their lives."
  • (19) He was the opposite of an egotist, being neither boastful nor conceited, but his professional personality had a streak of the kindly egoist to it.
  • (20) The conceit was a lie founded on truth, and that four-year hole in his IMDb list, beginning not long after he won a Golden Globe for Walk The Line , is real.

Smug


Definition:

  • (a.) Studiously neat or nice, especially in dress; spruce; affectedly precise; smooth and prim.
  • (v. t.) To make smug, or spruce.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) "Anne Hathaway at least tried to sing and dance and preen along to the goings on, but Franco seemed distant, uninterested and content to keep his Cheshire-cat-meets-smug smile on display throughout."
  • (2) What's more, his genial stiffness and shy self-awareness give him a kind of awkward dignity compared to the preening smugness of Cruz.
  • (3) It might be worth looking at how others do it, and not smugly concluding that the public likes the NHS the way it is.
  • (4) He is far too astute an analyst of comedy to be unaware of the danger of looking smug and there were sufficient layers of irony and knowing jokes within jokes for the conceit to work.
  • (5) I smiled smugly – there’s nothing like praise from a kindred spirit.
  • (6) And he provided the catalyst that improved the lot of the player in what had become an exceedingly smug game.
  • (7) Our political class is indeed the pinnacle of smug regurgitation.
  • (8) Meanwhile, eco-triumphalists will witter smugly about how the ban will save - what was it again?
  • (9) He had to do more than opt out of the yah-boo , smug sixth-form wordplay of the House of Commons.
  • (10) Dave meanwhile lapsed into his shrill Bullingdon Club persona; the dividing line between self confidence and smugness is gossamer thin for the prime minister.
  • (11) Before a ferociously red crowd, in which the Australian fans, scattered throughout the stadium in little blobs of yellow, struggled to assert themselves in any meaningful way, the Chileans started with their customary disregard for defence, a line of five attackers purring forward with gushing, almost smug intent.
  • (12) Softness and tenderness, wistful ironies” he conceded as blindspots, describing Motown as mere “foot fodder” but having a lot of time for relatively minor practitioners such as Joe Tex , who he saw as “hugely smug” but with “great charm and inventiveness”.
  • (13) The most likely comment to exasperate Serwotka is the assertion that they're fat cats, a smug drain on the public purse: of 301,000 members "we've got 30,000 people earning just above the minimum wage, 100,000 earning less than £15,000 [the average civil service salary is £22,000].
  • (14) Maurice Vassie Deighton, North Yorkshire • If recent history is anything to go by, then Jeremy Corbyn has every chance of being elected prime minister ( Why smart Tories should not be smug about Corbyn , 27 July).
  • (15) Among other things, the novels work as a meditation on America's Calvinist conscience, its strengths and blindnesses, and the way that it moved from fanaticism to smugness in the century after the civil war.
  • (16) It satirises the smug, modernist home-owners often seen in the pages of US interiors magazine Dwell.
  • (17) This kind of smugness is always given short shrift by the elderly.
  • (18) Feminism , according to Moran, is "simply the belief that women should be as free as men – however nuts, dim, deluded, badly dressed, fat, receding, lazy and smug they might be.
  • (19) With incredible complacency, politicians from both sides of parliament basked in the glory and reacted smugly when the US and the eurozone hit a brick wall.
  • (20) They can be insufferably smug, much more so than the people who knew they had achieved advancement not on their own merit but because they were, as somebody's son or daughter, the beneficiaries of nepotism.