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upbeat

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up⋅beat

  [uhp-beet]
Use upbeat in a Sentence
–noun Music.
1. an unaccented beat, esp. immediately preceding a downbeat.
2. the upward stroke with which a conductor indicates such a beat.
–adjective
3. optimistic; happy; cheerful: television dramas with predictably upbeat endings.
Origin:
1865–70; 1950–55 for def. 3; up- + beat
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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up·beat   (ŭp'bēt')   
n.   Music

  1. An unaccented beat or beats that occur before the first beat of a measure. Also called anacrusis, pickup.

  2. The upward stroke made by a conductor to indicate the beat that leads into a new measure.

adj.   Informal

  1. Optimistic: an upbeat business forecast.

  2. Happy; cheerful.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Slang Dictionary
upbeat

  1. mod.
    bright and cheery; not negative. (Compare this with downbeat.) : I'd prefer to open the conference with an upbeat topic.
Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition.
Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
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Word Origin & History

upbeat  (adj.)
"with a positive mood," 1947, apparently from the musical noun upbeat (1869), referring to the beat of a bar at which the conductor's baton is in a raised position; the "optimistic" sense apparently for no other reason than that it sounds like a happy word (the musical upbeat is no more inherently "positive" than any other beat).
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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