Absent ironic undertones or smarmy orchestral colours, the affirmative character of love music in most nineteenth-century opera can scarcely communicate divided loyalties.
We may get a few smarmy words about what a good idea it is, but that is as far as it will go.
I feel also quite certain that no good whatever is done by appeasement or by being "smarmy," or by not saying exactly what we think about it.
He's very smarmy, and usually refers to his students as children.
What it is an irritatingly smarmy, implausible mess.
The film itself is otherwise sincere in general, with no real attempt at smarmy black humour or winks to the audience.
Early roles were rather strait-laced, he then sometimes played his "snide" character: quite slimy and smarmy with a distinctive nasal voice.
The character is self-centered, smarmy, quick tempered, and overbearingly insincere.
