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Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) - Cite This Source - Share This

op·ti·mism

Audio Help [op-tuh-miz-uh

m] Pronunciation Key

–noun

1.	a disposition or tendency to look on the more favorable side of events or conditions and to expect the most favorable outcome.

2.	the belief that good ultimately predominates over evil in the world.

3.	the belief that goodness pervades reality.

4.	the doctrine that the existing world is the best of all possible worlds.

[Origin: 1730–40; < F optimisme < L optim(um) (see optimum) + F -isme -ism

]

—Synonyms 1. confidence, hopefulness, cheerfulness.

—Antonyms 1, 2. pessimism, cynicism.

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
optimism

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American Heritage Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This

op·ti·mism Audio Help (ŏp'tə-mĭz'əm) Pronunciation Key
n.

A tendency to expect the best possible outcome or dwell on the most hopeful aspects of a situation: "There is a touch of optimism in every worry about one's own moral cleanliness" (Victoria Ocampo).
Philosophy
1. The doctrine, asserted by Leibnitz, that this world is the best of all possible worlds.
2. The belief that the universe is improving and that good will ultimately triumph over evil.

[French optimisme, from New Latin optimum, the greatest good; see optimum.]

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The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2006 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Online Etymology Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This
optimism

1782, from Fr. optimisme (1737), from Mod.L. optimum, used by Leibnitz (in Théodicée, 1710) to mean "the greatest good," from L. 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. Optimist is 1766, from Fr. optimiste; Optimistic is first attested 1848.

WordNet - Cite This Source - Share This

optimism
noun
1.	the optimistic feeling that all is going to turn out well [ant: pessimism]
2.	a general disposition to expect the best in all things [ant: pessimism]

Kernerman English Multilingual Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This
optimism [ˈoptimizəm] noun

a state of mind in which one always hopes or expects that something good will happen
Example: Even when it was obvious to the others that he was not going to succeed he was full of optimism.

Arabic:	تَفاؤُل
Chinese (Simplified):	乐观主义
Chinese (Traditional):	樂觀主義
Czech:	optimismus
Danish:	optimisme
Dutch:	optimisme
Estonian:	optimism
Finnish:	optimismi
French:	optimisme
German:	der Optimismus
Greek:	αισιοδοξία
Hungarian:	optimizmus
Icelandic:	bjartsÿni
Indonesian:	optimisme
Italian:	ottimismo

Japanese:	楽観
Korean:	낙관, 무사 태평
Latvian:	optimisms
Lithuanian:	optimizmas
Norwegian:	optimisme
Polish:	optymizm
Portuguese (Brazil):	otimismo
Portuguese (Portugal):	optimismo
Romanian:	optimism
Russian:	оптимизм
Slovak:	optimizmus
Slovenian:	optimizem
Spanish:	optimismo
Swedish:	optimism
Turkish:	iyimserlik

See also: optimistic

Free On-line Dictionary of Computing - Cite This Source - Share This

optimism
What a programmer is full of after fixing the last bug and just before actually discovering the *next* last bug. Fred Brooks's book "The Mythical Man-Month" contains the following paragraph that describes this extremely well.
All programmers are optimists. Perhaps this modern sorcery especially attracts those who believe in happy endings and fairy god-mothers. Perhaps the hundreds of nitty frustrations drive away all but those who habitually focus on the end goal. Perhaps it is merely that computers are young, programmers are younger, and the young are always optimists. But however the selection process works, the result is indisputable: "This time it will surely run," or "I just found the last bug.".
See also Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic Entomology.
[The Jargon File]

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This

Optimism

Op"ti*mism\, n. [L. optimus the best; akin to optio choice: cf. F. optimisme. See Option.]

1. (Metaph.) The opinion or doctrine that everything in nature, being the work of God, is ordered for the best, or that the ordering of things in the universe is such as to produce the highest good.

2. A disposition to take the most hopeful view; -- opposed to pessimism.

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