meliorism
Americannoun
noun
Other Word Forms
- meliorist noun
- melioristic adjective
Etymology
Origin of meliorism
1855–60; < Latin melior better + -ism
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.
He explained, “In the spirit of American meliorism, the criticism is to make things better, not necessarily because I didn’t like it.”
From New York Times
What if the real way forward weren’t a great leap but grinding, tedious, unglamorously incremental change—what George Eliot called “meliorism”?
From The New Yorker
The world-view of Judaism, which regards the entire economy of life as the realization of the all-encompassing plan of an all-wise Creator, is accordingly an energizing optimism, or, more precisely, meliorism.
From Project Gutenberg
In the midst of a futile meliorism which deceives the more, the more it soothes, he stands out like some sinister skeleton at the feast, regarding the festivities with a flickering and impenetrable grin.
From Project Gutenberg
For, after all, we must never shut our eyes to the actual; and in the world as it is, meliorism, not optimism, is the true opposite of pessimism.
From Project Gutenberg
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.
