Meaning & use
hopeful
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Meanings
adjectivecomparable
Feeling that something you want is likely to happen.
Grammar: Often followed by about or that: hopeful about the future, hopeful that things will improve.
Patterns
- be hopeful about something
- be hopeful that something will happen
- feel hopeful
She felt hopeful about the job interview.
The doctors are hopeful that he will recover soon.
We remain hopeful that the weather will clear.
adjectivecomparable
Giving reason to expect good results.
Grammar: Used about signs or news: a hopeful sign.
Patterns
- a hopeful sign
- hopeful news
The test results were a hopeful sign for the whole team.
There was a hopeful look on his face.
The talks ended on a hopeful note.
nouncountable
A person who hopes to succeed or be chosen, especially in a competition or election.
Grammar: Countable and often in compounds: presidential hopeful.
Patterns
- a presidential hopeful
- young hopefuls
Dozens of young hopefuls lined up for the audition.
The party named its hopeful for the mayoral race.
An Olympic hopeful trains every morning at dawn.
Word forms
| comparative | more hopeful |
|---|---|
| superlative | most hopeful |
| plural | hopefuls |
Common combinations
- remain hopeful
- Rescuers remained hopeful despite the delay.
- cautiously hopeful
- Investors are cautiously hopeful about next year.
- hopeful sign
- The falling rate is a hopeful sign.
- hopeful about
- I am hopeful about our chances.
- presidential hopeful
- Several presidential hopefuls attended the rally.
Synonyms and how they differ
- optimistic
- Optimistic describes a general tendency to expect good outcomes, but hopeful is tied to a specific wish.
- confident
- Confident is stronger and suggests near certainty, whereas hopeful allows doubt.
- promising
- Promising describes things that show signs of future success, but hopeful describes a feeling in a person.
- upbeat
- Upbeat is informal and describes a cheerful mood, not necessarily a specific expectation.
Opposites
Word family
- hope noun
- a wish or expectation that something good will happen
- hopefully adverb
- in a hopeful way, or it is to be hoped
- hopefulness noun
- the state of feeling hopeful
- hopeless adjective
- having no hope or no chance
Commonly confused: hopeful or hopeless?
hopeful vs hopeless
Hopeless means without hope. Hopeful means with hope, so they are opposites despite looking alike.
Practice
Which word best completes the sentence: Doctors are ___ that the treatment will work, but they cannot be certain.
Choose one answer.
Hopeful is the adjective that follows be and takes a that clause. Hopeless has the opposite meaning, and hopefully is an adverb.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “hopeful”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.