smarmy
adjective
1.
unpleasantly and excessively suave or ingratiating in manner or speech
- “buttery praise”
- “gave him a fulsome introduction”
- “an oily sycophantic press agent”
- “oleaginous hypocrisy”
- “smarmy self-importance”
- “the unctuous Uriah Heep”
- “soapy compliments”
Origin
From smarm + -y. Apparently coined by "B.R.L., of Brighton" with sense "saying treacly things which do not sound genuine" in a competition for neologisms in The Academy (London) published on 14 January 1899.
WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.