pessimism
Pessimism is the tendency to expect the worst and to see mainly the bad side of things; in philosophy, the view that suffering outweighs good.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)Definitions
- A habit of mind in which a person expects that plans will fail, problems will grow and good news will not last.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - A gloomy assessment of a particular situation, such as the economy, a project or a team's chances, held by a person or a group at a given time.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - In philosophy: the doctrine that the world is fundamentally bad, or that pain and frustration outweigh happiness in human life.
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Examples
- His pessimism about the weather proved right: the picnic was rained out within twenty minutes.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - A wave of pessimism among investors pushed share prices down for the third week in a row.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - The lecture compared the pessimism of Schopenhauer with the more hopeful outlook of the Enlightenment.
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Usage
In everyday English pessimism usually describes an outlook rather than a single opinion. A pessimist does not just predict that one thing will go wrong; they tend to expect disappointment across many areas of life and to discount reasons for hope. The word is common in reporting on business and politics, where surveys measure consumer pessimism, business pessimism or pessimism about the future, and where a mood can swing from optimism to pessimism within a few months.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)Pessimism is not the same as cynicism or realism. A cynic doubts other people's motives, while a pessimist doubts outcomes: a cynic thinks a politician is lying, a pessimist thinks the policy will fail even if it is sincere. Calling yourself a realist is often a polite way of defending a pessimistic forecast, so the two words can overlap in debate, but realism claims to follow the evidence wherever it leads, and pessimism leans towards the darker reading in advance.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)The philosophical sense is older in English dictionaries than many readers expect. Webster's 1913 dictionary gives two senses of pessimism: the doctrine that everything in nature tends to the worst, opposed to optimism, and a disposition to take the least hopeful view of things. The first sense is linked above all with the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, whose work is often described as the classic statement of philosophical pessimism.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)The noun is mostly uncountable. A person with this outlook is a pessimist, the adjective is pessimistic and the adverb is pessimistically. Typical phrases include deep pessimism, growing pessimism, widespread pessimism, a mood of pessimism and grounds for pessimism. The usual opposite is optimism, and the two words are often paired in sentences such as the balance between optimism and pessimism.
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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 | pessimism |
| plural | pessimisms |
Word forms: Editorial team
Collocations
- deep pessimism
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - growing pessimism
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - widespread pessimism
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - a mood of pessimism
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - grounds for pessimism
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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
- pessimist , agent noun
- pessimistic , adjective
- optimism , antonym
- impair , same Latin root
Related entries
Questions and answers
What does pessimism mean?
Pessimism means expecting things to turn out badly. A pessimistic person focuses on risks and problems and tends to doubt that a situation will improve.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)What is the difference between pessimism and cynicism?
Pessimism is about outcomes: the expectation that events will go badly. Cynicism is about motives: the belief that people act out of self-interest. Someone can be pessimistic about a plan while trusting the people behind it.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)What is the origin of the word pessimism?
The word was formed from Latin pessimus, meaning worst, which Webster's 1913 dictionary treats as the superlative belonging to pejor, worse. Optimism was built in the same way from optimus, meaning best.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)Is pessimism always a bad thing?
Not necessarily. In everyday speech the word is mildly critical, but a cautious, pessimistic forecast can help people prepare for risks that an optimist might overlook.