Crossword clues for optimism
optimism
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Optimism \Op"ti*mism\, n. [L. optimus the best; akin to optio choice: cf. F. optimisme. See Option.]
(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.
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
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
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
Wikipedia
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.