optimism
Optimism is the habit of expecting good outcomes and seeing the hopeful side of events; in philosophy, the belief that the world is arranged for the best.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)Definitions
- A general attitude of a person who trusts that things will work out well and that difficulties can be overcome.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - Confidence about one specific prospect, such as a recovery, a negotiation or a team's season, felt by someone or shared by many people at a particular moment.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - In philosophy: the teaching that the universe is arranged for the best, or that good in the world outweighs evil.
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Examples
- Her optimism kept the volunteers going through a cold and rainy weekend of clearing the riverbank.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - Fresh figures on hiring sparked cautious optimism that the slowdown was nearly over.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - The seminar traced how eighteenth century optimism was mocked by writers who had witnessed war and disaster.
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Usage
In ordinary speech optimism names a lasting outlook more often than a single prediction. An optimistic person tends to expect that effort will pay off, that setbacks are temporary and that most problems have a solution. The word is frequent in news about business and politics, where reporters write about consumer optimism, investor optimism or optimism about a peace deal, and where surveys try to measure how hopeful people feel about the coming months.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)Optimism is often qualified, because unlimited confidence can sound naive. Writers speak of cautious optimism, guarded optimism or measured optimism when they want to signal hope without promising a result. The opposite warning appears in phrases such as blind optimism, misplaced optimism or naive optimism, which suggest that someone is ignoring evidence. In this way the same noun can be praise or criticism depending on the adjective in front of it.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)Optimism is not the same as hope or wishful thinking. Hope can exist when the odds are poor, while optimism usually implies a belief that the odds are in fact good. Wishful thinking means believing something because you want it to be true; an optimist may reach the same forecast, but ideally for reasons. Psychologists also use the term for a measurable personality trait, often contrasted with pessimism on a single scale.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)Webster's 1913 dictionary lists the philosophical meaning first: the opinion that nature, being the work of God, is ordered for the best and produces the highest good. Its second meaning is a disposition to take the most hopeful view, opposed to pessimism. Optimism rarely takes a plural. Someone who holds this attitude is an optimist, the adjective is optimistic and the adverb is optimistically.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)Word forms
Regular forms according to English morphology (editorial description); the noun is mostly used without a plural.
word forms
| przypadek | forma |
|---|---|
| singular | optimism |
| plural | optimisms |
Word forms: Editorial team
Collocations
- cautious optimism
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - guarded optimism
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - blind optimism
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - a wave of optimism
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - grounds for optimism
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Synonyms · Antonyms
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)source
Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)Etymology
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W. W. Skeat, An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, 4th ed., Oxford 1910, open sourcealso
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1913, open sourceRelated words
- optimist , agent noun
- optimistic , adjective
- pessimism , antonym
- option , related Latin word
Related entries
Questions and answers
What does optimism mean?
Optimism is a belief that the future will turn out well. An optimistic person tends to focus on possibilities rather than risks and believes that most problems can eventually be solved with effort.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)What is cautious optimism?
Cautious optimism is hope that a situation will improve, combined with an awareness that it might not. Journalists use the phrase when early signs are good but the outcome is still uncertain.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)Where does the word optimism come from?
Optimism comes from Latin optimus, meaning best, plus the suffix -ism. Its counterpart pessimism was coined on the same pattern from Latin pessimus, meaning worst, so the two words mirror each other.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)What is the opposite of optimism?
The usual opposite is pessimism, the tendency to expect bad outcomes. Webster's 1913 dictionary already describes the hopeful sense of optimism as opposed to pessimism.