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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
optimism
noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a mood of optimism/despair/excitement etc
▪ There is a new mood of optimism.
cautious optimism
▪ The air-pollution board has reacted with cautious optimism to the announcement.
new hope/confidence/optimism etc (=hope etc that you have only just started to feel)
▪ a medical breakthrough that offers new hope to cancer patients
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
cautious
▪ There are grounds for cautious optimism.
▪ None the less, there is cautious optimism at the dawning of a new age.
▪ A cautious optimism spread within the liberal intelligentsia, and the writers, especially, initiated calls for greater artistic freedom.
▪ This year 184 dealers took part compared to 176 in 1992 and a number of participants expressed cautious optimism.
▪ There was cautious optimism from ISPs after the announcement was made public yesterday.
■ NOUN
business
▪ Last month the Tankan survey of corporate sentiment showed that business optimism has stalled.
▪ The report concludes with references to increase in long term unemployment and slump in business optimism.
■ VERB
express
▪ He also expressed optimism that an acceptable constitutional arrangement could be agreed which would obviate the need for Quebec to seek independence.
▪ Administration sources expressed optimism that protracted negotiations between the Senate and White House might eventually result in some softening of the ban.
▪ He expressed modest optimism about the Impressionist market and felt that some new collectors were emerging.
reason
▪ They have reason for optimism, having beaten the Rockets four consecutive times this season.
share
▪ I don't share that optimism: the break, tacitly threatened over recent years, has been made.
▪ We would love to share the optimism that still characterizes much economic debate.
▪ Second, John wanted the Council to share in his optimism about the presence of the Holy Spirit in the modern world.
▪ He did not share my optimism.
▪ Not everyone shares Maughan's optimism that the deal will go ahead.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ the optimism of the post-war period
▪ the optimism of the postwar years
▪ There is a mood of optimism among Socialist Party supporters tonight.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ But before proceeding to optimism I have to introduce some harsh truths.
▪ In a triumph of optimism over realism, the Fontis left New York for their vacation.
▪ Mr Major based his optimism on figures which showed factory output was rising.
▪ The new approach is generally supported by child support collectors, but some think Morales' optimism is unrealistic.
▪ They always want the news to be good, and they want their leaders to represent their collective optimism.
▪ This is the optimism upon which all golf is rooted.
▪ We all bought his optimism, of course.
▪ We liked Mr Clinton's energy and optimism, and we had endorsed him largely on the strength of them.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Optimism

Optimism \Op"ti*mism\, n. [L. optimus the best; akin to optio choice: cf. F. optimisme. See Option.]

  1. (Metaph.) The opinion or doctrine that everything in nature, being the work of God, is ordered for the best, or that the ordering of things in the universe is such as to produce the highest good.

  2. A habitual tendency or a present disposition to take the most hopeful view of future events, and to expect a favorable outcome even when unfavorable outcomes are possible; -- opposed to pessimism.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
optimism

1759 (in translations of Voltaire), from French optimisme (1737), from Modern Latin optimum, used by Gottfried Leibniz (in "Théodicée," 1710) to mean "the greatest good," from Latin optimus "the best" (see optimum). The doctrine holds that the actual world is the "best of all possible worlds," in which the creator accomplishes the most good at the cost of the least evil. En termes de l'art, il l'appelle la raison du meilleur ou plus savamment encore, et Theologiquement autant que Géométriquement, le systême de l'Optimum, ou l'Optimisme. [Mémoires de Trévoux, Feb. 1737]Launched out of philosophical jargon and into currency by Voltaire's satire on it in "Candide." General sense of "belief that good ultimately will prevail in the world" first attested 1841 in Emerson; meaning "tendency to take a hopeful view of things" first recorded 1819 in Shelley.

Wiktionary
optimism

n. 1 a tendency to expect the best, or at least, a favourable outcome 2 the doctrine that this world is the best of all possible worlds 3 the belief that good will eventually triumph over evil

WordNet
optimism
  1. n. the optimistic feeling that all is going to turn out well [ant: pessimism]

  2. a general disposition to expect the best in all things [ant: pessimism]

Wikipedia
Optimism

Optimism is a mental attitude or world view. A common idiom used to illustrate optimism versus pessimism is a glass with water at the halfway point, where the optimist is said to see the glass as half full and the pessimist sees the glass as half empty.

The term is originally derived from the Latin optimum, meaning "best". Being optimistic, in the typical sense of the word, is defined as expecting the best possible outcome from any given situation. This is usually referred to in psychology as dispositional optimism. It thus reflects a belief that future conditions will work out for the best.

Theories of optimism include dispositional models, and models of explanatory style. Methods to measure optimism have been developed within both theoretical systems, such as various forms of the Life Orientation Test, for the original definition of optimism, or the Attributional Style Questionnaire designed to test optimism in terms of explanatory style.

Variation in optimism and pessimism is somewhat heritable and reflects biological trait systems to some degree. It is also influenced by environmental factors, including family environment, with some suggesting it can be learned. Optimism may also be linked to health.

Usage examples of "optimism".

What I find most repulsive is their well-fed look and that visceral, purely bullish or boarish optimism.

She was thin and straight-backed and competent, and seemed so uninterested in my meeting that I was able to hope again, with wild optimism, that the whole confession was a Dunster fantasy.

Cris wanted me to join that sartorial enthusiast Peregrine Gryce in an effort to control Dunster, an activity which required the hopeless optimism of King Canute giving orders to the tide.

In the increasing fragmentation of mankind, the shock of the Poole wormhole incursion faded - despite the ominous warnings of Superet - and it remained a time of optimism, of hope, of expansion into an unlimited future.

Who cares that the crones and the predikants, using separate sets of words, murmur jeremiads that too much optimism is bad for the soul, and attracts perhaps more attention from God than, strictly speaking, is desirable?

With a little time since the kiss and an upsurge of optimism, Mitchella had determined that she was capable of being completely involved in the project and completely uninvolved with the GrandLord.

Even now she was thinking, with excited optimism, about Peptide 7 and Hexin W.

If he could not give the great and curious lady a very definite idea as to what the world was coming to, he had managed without effort to impress her by his unembittered faith, by the sterling quality of his optimism.

They had located some stale hash cookies and decided to pool all of their fireworks purchases and construct a single multistage rocketship held together with masking tape and hallucinogenic optimism.

I wonder what our workers, our shock workers, would say if they were to learn that the optimism spurring them on to overfulfill the plan was opium, another added.

While it is but early days in this new reign, I find optimism warming my heart as I bid my screever set down my personal thoughts at this turn of the year.

There had been a tramontane wind for several days, which at first had swept the sky clean with its raw, cold breath, but now it had turned sweet and mild, and with the sun like your warm hand on my shoulder, I felt the optimism and yearnings of springtime turning over in me.

Nevertheless they do live, they do exist, and this is cause for optimism if not unalleviated joy.

For all his optimism, for all his young, undrained strength, a doubt began to grow in the mind of Pierre le Rouge.

Memorandum of the Princes was not unperceptive about the dangers of the course into which the monarchy was being swept in a state of rudderless optimism.