adjective
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having or expressing hope
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giving or inspiring hope; promising
noun
Other Word 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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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.
Pacific Coast said it is hopeful about the prospects of reaching a long-term production deal with Venezuela.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 21, 2026
“With the lack of another EPS downgrade, we are hopeful this result has marked the end of Ebos’s downgrade cycle and investor confidence can start to rebuild,” says Forsyth Barr analyst Ben Crozier.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 20, 2026
Are they hopeful at least that they’ll achieve what they want to before the robots take over?
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 19, 2026
"But police are following a lead now so I'm hopeful."
From BBC ● Aug. 14, 2026
This ended up splitting Republican votes between Roosevelt and Taft, which allowed the Democratic hopeful, Woodrow Wilson, to win the election.
From "Death on the River of Doubt" by Samantha Seiple
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.
