optimism
- a disposition or tendency to look on the more favorable side of events or conditions and to expect the most favorable outcome.
- the belief that good ultimately predominates over evil in the world.
- the belief that goodness pervades reality.
- the doctrine that the existing world is the best of all possible worlds.
Origin of optimism
Synonyms for optimism
Antonyms for optimism
Examples from the Web for overoptimism
Contemporary Examples of overoptimism
And so Jindal's mix of anger and overoptimism fits the moment.
Historical Examples of overoptimism
I urged the PM to be cautious about overoptimism in giving out the news.
Greener Than You ThinkWard Moore
overoptimism
- excessive hopefulness or confidence
optimism
- the tendency to expect the best and see the best in all things
- hopefulness; confidence
- the doctrine of the ultimate triumph of good over evil
- the philosophical doctrine that this is the best of all possible worlds
Word Origin for optimism
Word Origin and History for overoptimism
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.