Smarm

Phil Hartman, the voice and soul of McClure, was the king of making everything sounds cheerful and positive, no matter how grim. McClure was the personification of smarm. He alone could say, “Your children are missing. I know because I murdered them with my own hands!” and make it sound like good news.

"If you go to her and smarm her, it will be all right." "If I do what to her?" asked Mervyn, wondering what the operation of smarming might be. "Of course you don't know," laughed Aggie; "it is a school word. You explain what it means, Isabel." "To smarm," explained Isabel, "signifies to say 'yes ma'am,' or 'yes marm,' to a governess when she is rating you. It is ah expressive word, isn't it? It means 'to conciliate by assent;' that is the best definition that I can give of it." "Excellent word," said Mervyn. "Then. I am to smarm your mamma, am I, Aggie?["]

He rose ... on his wife's fortune and judicious smarming of powerful people.