pleased as punch

1. alternativenot comparableAlternative form of pleased as Punch.

   Those other "pure" women had nearly taken all the balls out of me, but she was all right that way. She wanted me, and made no bones about it. And I was as pleased as punch. That was what I wanted: a woman who wanted me to fuck her. So I fucked her like a good un.

   1928, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, chapter 14, in Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Gutenberg edition, [Florence, Italy]: [ […] Tipografia Giuntina, […]], →OCLC; republished as Lady Chatterley’s Lover (eBook no. 0100181h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg Australia, August 2011, archived from the original on 11 Nov 2020

alternative pleased as punch

1. colloquialdatednot comparablesimilePleased.

   "[…]Now,—what'll the old woman say?" "She'll be pleased as Punch, I should think," said Stanbury.

   1869 May, Anthony Trollope, chapter XLIX, in He Knew He Was Right, volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Strahan and Company, […], →OCLC

   2 more examples

   Then with a little start of remembrance he said, “Mary, write and give up that school. Stay and help your mother. I’m as pleased as Punch, now I’ve thought of that.”

   1872, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter XL, in Middlemarch […], volume II, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, book IV, page 327

   Sally looked at him with her clear eyes. “Aren’t you glad?” she asked again. “I thought you’d be as pleased as Punch.”

   1915, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, chapter CXXII, in Of Human Bondage, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, →OCLC

   1. colloquialdatednot comparablesimilePleased with one's own actions or achievements.
   2. colloquialdatednot comparablesometimessimileSmugly so.

      Near-synonyms: self-satisfied, complacent, smug, like a pig in clover, happy as a pig in shit

      1 more example

      He was out, too, when I called at his hotel; but once, I had the good fortune to see him, with his hat curiously on one side, looking as pleased as Punch, and being driven, in an open cab, in the Champs Elysées.

      1840, M. A. Titmarsh [pseudonym; William Makepeace Thackeray], The Paris Sketch Book, volume I, London: John Macrone, […], →OCLC, page 41

      Synonyms: self-satisfied, complacent, smug, like a pig in clover, happy as a pig in shit