Pangloss
Britishnoun
Other Word Forms
- Panglossian adjective
Etymology
Origin of Pangloss
C19: after Dr Pangloss , a character in Voltaire's Candide (1759)
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 ends up on a farm, done with the blind optimism of his mentor Pangloss.
From Los Angeles Times
I don’t want to sound like the perpetually optimistic Dr. Pangloss.
From Washington Post
A few years later, he and Prince worked together on a revival of Leonard Bernstein’s “Candide,” for which he played the pedantic Dr. Pangloss.
From Washington Post
Pinker isn’t a Doctor Pangloss who thinks we live in the best of all possible worlds.
From Scientific American
From LaBonge, we were charmed by a boyish Pangloss who believed passionately that the City of the Angels was the best of all possible places.
From Los Angeles Times
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.
