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.
"It is too early to make definitive recommendations based on our results, but we are hopeful that a more expansive study will provide further insights."
From Science Daily ● Oct. 20, 2026
Still, May says, “I remain hopeful and optimistic because I’ve seen the humanity in all of them. I think things are better there now than when we started.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 16, 2026
Roboticists are hopeful that AI can turn humanoids, once seen as a technological non-starter, into a viable industry.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 16, 2026
But the team is hopeful the colony can bounce back when they return from Africa in spring, with plans to improve the site and further protect the birds under way.
From BBC ● Oct. 15, 2026
He looked hopeful, though—so sad and so hopeful—and he was trying, so I told him, “That does sound like fun.”
From "The Science of Breakable Things" by Tae Keller
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
