adjective
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having or expressing hope
-
giving or inspiring hope; promising
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Etymology
Origin of hopeful
Explanation
If you're hopeful about something, you're optimistic. You think it's going to turn out OK. Your team has been doing well in practice, so you're hopeful that you'll win the finals. Hopeful comes from the word hope, meaning "optimism about a future event," and the suffix -ful, meaning "full." So if you're hopeful, you're full of hope: you think something good is going to happen. You might be hopeful that you'll be offered a job after your great interview. Used as a noun, hopeful can describe a promising person who wants to succeed at a particular goal. The charismatic young politician is a hopeful for the next election.
Vocabulary lists containing hopeful
The New SAT: Words to Capture Tone
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Emotions on Display
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In the Mood? 100 Words to Describe Emotions
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Eclipsing that idea, though, is how much more alive and hopeful this documentary makes us feel.
From Salon • Jun. 7, 2026
For people dealing with hair loss, the research offers a hopeful but cautious message.
From Science Daily • Jun. 7, 2026
A source close to one presidential candidate, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said recently the campaign was approached by a female influencer wanting to boost the election hopeful.
From Barron's • Jun. 3, 2026
But another former Democratic presidential hopeful has outspent him overall, as billionaire Michael Bloomberg pumped about $1 billion of his own fortune into his unsuccessful 2020 White House bid.
From MarketWatch • Jun. 3, 2026
The prince saluted them both with a hopeful smile, then strode purposefully out the door and back to where they’d hidden their belongings in the brush outside the clearing.
From "Half Upon a Time" by James Riley
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
