Meaning & use
optimism
Last updated
Meanings
noununcountableapproving
A hopeful attitude in which you expect good things to happen and focus on the bright side.
Grammar: Uncountable; usually followed by about or for: optimism about the future.
Patterns
- optimism about something
- optimism for something
Her optimism helped the team keep going after the early losses.
There is cautious optimism about next year's harvest.
He faced the surgery with surprising optimism.
noununcountabletechnical
In philosophy, the view that the world is basically good or that things will turn out for the best.
Grammar: A technical sense found in philosophy courses.
Voltaire mocked the optimism of Leibniz in Candide.
The philosophy of optimism holds that this is the best possible world.
Students debated whether optimism can be defended logically.
Common combinations
- cautious optimism
- Doctors expressed cautious optimism about her recovery.
- growing optimism
- There is growing optimism that a deal can be reached.
- reason for optimism
- The new data gave us reason for optimism.
- boundless optimism
- The young founders had boundless optimism.
- optimism about the future
- He spoke with optimism about the future.
Synonyms and how they differ
- hopefulness
- Hopefulness describes feeling that something good could happen, while optimism is a more settled habit of expecting it.
- positivity
- Positivity is a broader mood of being upbeat, whereas optimism is about expectation of good outcomes.
- confidence
- Confidence rests on belief in ability or evidence, while optimism may be based on temperament alone.
- cheerfulness
- Cheerfulness is about mood now, while optimism looks ahead.
Opposites
Word family
- optimist noun
- a person who expects good outcomes
- optimistic adjective
- hopeful about the future
- optimistically adverb
- in a hopeful way
- optimize verb
- to make as good as possible
Commonly confused: optimism or optimization?
optimism vs optimization
Optimization means making something work as well as possible. It comes from the same Latin root but has no link to attitude.
Practice
After the first good test results, the doctor spoke with cautious ___.
Choose one answer.
Cautious optimism means hope held with care. Pessimism, skepticism and cynicism express doubt, so they clash with the good results.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “optimism”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.