Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Optimist |
OptimistNoun1. A person disposed to take a favorable view of things. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "optimist" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1792. (references) |
Etymology: Optimist \Op"ti*mist\, noun. [Compare to the French expression optimiste.]. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Satire | OPTIMIST, n. A proponent of the doctrine that black is white. A pessimist applied to God for relief. "Ah, you wish me to restore your hope and cheerfulness," said God. "No," replied the petitioner, "I wish you to create something that would justify them." "The world is all created," said God, "but you have overlooked something -- the mortality of the optimist.". Source: Devil's Dictionary. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
A person's mood is the repertoire of emotions and thoughts experienced at a particular time. In normal functioning, moods are largely adaptive to external events.An optimist and a pessimist evaluate a situation relatively favorably and unfavorably, respectively. This applies also to expectations. The optimist looks at the world "through rose-tinted spectacles".
Mood disorders are mental illnesses where the normal functioning of mood is disrupted.
See also:
- Grammatical mood
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Mood."
| Antonym: pessimist (n). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Flatterer | Noun: flatterer, adulator; eulogist, euphemist; optimist, encomiast, laudator, whitewasher. |
Hope | Optimist, utopian, utopist. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Optimist |
| English words defined with "optimist": Micawber ♦ Pangloss ♦ Utopianist ♦ Wilkins Micawber. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "optimist": MUNYON ♦ Pessimism ♦ Railroad. (references) |
| Non-English Usage: "Optimist" is also a word in the following languages with English translations in parentheses. Albanian (debonair, hopeful, optimist, optimistic, sanguine), Danish (optimist), Dutch (optimist), German (optimist), Romanian (bright, buoyant, elastic, hopeful, optimist, optimistic, resilient, sanguine), Swedish (optimist), Turkish (optimist). |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | Bratwurst? Aren't we the optimist. Next time, keep it in your pouch, okay (10 Things I Hate About You; writing credit: Karen McCullah Lutz; Kirsten Smith) You can afford to be an optimist. I can't (Patton; writing credit: Ladislas Farago; Omar N. Bradley) You know, you're the only guy I know who's so dark it turns me into an optimist. It's kinda scary (Everwood; writing credit: Michael Green; Rina Mimoun) What an optimist. (Smartest Girl in Town; writing credit: Muriel Scheck; H.S. Kraft) Optimist only sees doughnut (Charlie Chan in Paris; writing credit: Philip MacDonald; Edward T. Lowe Jr.) | |
Clever | An optimist laughs to forget, a pessimist forgets to laugh. (references; author: unknown) The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears it is true. (references; author: unknown) | |
Movie/TV Titles | Der Optimist (1938) The Optimist (1926) Little Miss Optimist (1917) The Optimist (1983) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
Books | |||
Periodicals |
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Music |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | Charter boat "Optimist" stands ready at Chesapeake Beach to take its next set of patrons fishing on the Chesapeake Bay. Credit: America's Coastlines. |  | The optimist. Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
 |
| "Junior Regatta" by Frank P.J. Van Haalen Commentary: "Tension before the start of the junior sailing regatta in the Optimist Class, Holland, The Netherlands." |
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers. |
| Author | Quotation |
Elbert Hubbard | A pessimist is one who has been compelled to live with an optimist. |
Jean De La Fontaine | A pessimist and an optimist, so much the worse; so much the better. |
Max Lerner | I am neither an optimist nor pessimist, but a possibilist. |
Peter Ustinov | The point of living, and of being an optimist, is to be foolish enough to believe the best is yet to come. |
Prime Minister Winston Churchill | For myself I am an optimist -- it does not seem to be much use being anything else. |
Will Rogers | You've got to be [an] optimist to be a Democrat, and you've got to be a humorist to stay one. |
William Arthur Ward | The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sail. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Lexicography | Devil's Dictionary | PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| Speaker | Term | Phrase(s) |
Gerald Ford | 1974-1977 | I am always an optimist, but we must make up for lost time. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| "Optimist" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 96.39% of the time. "Optimist" is used about 83 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 96.39% | 80 | 37,112 |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 2.41% | 2 | 245,945 |
| Noun (proper) | 1.2% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 83 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "optimist"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | optimist (debonair, hopeful, optimistic, sanguine). (various references) | |
Arabic | الميال للتفاؤل, المتفائل. (various references) | |
Bulgarian | оптимист. (various references) | |
Czech | optimista. (various references) | |
Danish | optimist. (various references) | |
Dutch | optimist. (various references) | |
Esperanto | optimisto. (various references) | |
Farsi | خوش بین (Optimistic, Roseate, Upbeat). (various references) | |
Finnish | optimisti. (various references) | |
French | optimiste (optimistic). (various references) | |
German | Optimist. (various references) | |
Greek | αισιόδοξοσ (optimistic, sanguine, sanguineous). (various references) | |
Hebrew | אופטימיסט, אופטימי (optimistic, rose coloured, upbeat). (various references) | |
Hungarian | optimista (optimistic, sanguine), derûlátó (optimistic, sanguine). (various references) | |
Irish | soirbhíoch. (various references) | |
Italian | ottimista (light hearted, optimistic). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 楽天家 (easy going person), 楽天主義者 , オプション取引 (medical operation, obelisk, oblisque, Omaha, omega, omelette, omelette rice, omit, omnibus, Omron Corporation, opaque, opcode, OPEC, opera, opera glasses, opera house, opera-comique, operand, operating, operating system, operating-system, operation, operation center, operation code, operational, operational amplifier, operations, operations research, operator, operetta, opossum, opportunism, opportunist, opposition party, optical, optical art, optimism, optimistic, optimize, optimizer, option dealing, option trading, option transaction, optoelectronics, OR, Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OS). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | オプチミスト , らくてんしゅぎしゃ, らくてんか (easy going person). (various references) | |
Manx | lane-yerkallagh (optimistic), jerkeyder (expecter), jerkallagh (expectant, expectative, expecter, hopeful, optimistic). (various references) | |
Papiamen | optimista. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | optimistay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | otimista (optimistic, upbeat). (various references) | |
Romanian | optimist (bright, buoyant, elastic, hopeful, optimistic, resilient, sanguine). (various references) | |
Russian | оптимист. (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | optimista. (various references) | |
Spanish | optimista (buoyant, hopeful, optimistic, rose colored, rose coloured, sanguine, upbeat). (various references) | |
Swedish | optimist. (various references) | |
Thai | ผู้ที่มองโลกในแง่ดี. (various references) | |
Turkish | optimist, iyimser (hopeful, optimistic, pollyanna, roseate, sanguine). (various references) | |
Ukrainian | оптиміст (scoutmaster). (various references) | |
Vietnamese | người lạc quan, lạc quan (roseate, rose-coloured, sanguine). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "optimist": optimistic, optimistically, optimists. (additional references) | |
Words ending with "optimist": overoptimist. (additional references) | |
Words containing "optimist": overoptimistic, overoptimistically, overoptimists. (additional references) | |
| |
"Optimist" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: intimist, opsimath, optimast, Optimaster, optimi, optimise, Optimista, optimistc, optimiste, optimmise, optimoist, optimus, Optivite, optomist, optulit, potamic. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "optimist" (pronounced Ä"ptumi'st) |
| 4 | -m i' s t | chemist, conformist, reformist. |
| 3 | -i' s t | absurdist, astrophysicist, backlist, baptist, bassist, blacklist, careerist, centrist, chartist, checklist, cheesiest, clearest, climatologist, collectivist, constructionist, consumerist, corporatist, costliest, counterterrorist, cubist, cutest, czarist, defeatist, dramatist, dualist, egotist, essayist, evangelist, expansionist, experimentalist, fatalist, flavorist, flutist, futurist, gradualist, harpist, horticulturist, humanist, jurist, lyrist, minimalist, monarchist, monetarist, moralist, nativist, nicest, nudist, optometrist, parodist, percussionist, perfectionist, pharmacologist, physicist, pinkest, podiatrist, practiced, pragmatist, publicist, purist, realist, recidivist, religionist, revisionist, revivalist, royalist, satanist, saxophonist, sensationalist, sexist, soloist, statist, stylist, suffragist, terrorist, trombonist, typist, vaguest. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "i-i-m-o-p-s-t-t" | |
-2 letters: impost, otitis. | |
-3 letters: impis, mitis, mitts, moist, motts, omits, posit, stomp, stopt, tipis, titis, toits, topis. | |
-4 letters: impi, imps, miso, mist, mitt, mops, most, mots, mott, omit, opts, piso, pits, pois, poms, post, pots, simp, smit, spit, spot, stop, tipi, tips, titi, toit, toms, topi, tops, tost, tots. | |
-5 letters: imp, ism, its, mis, mop. | |
| Words containing the letters "i-i-m-o-p-s-t-t" | |
+1 letter: optimists. | |
+2 letters: optimistic, patriotism. | |
+3 letters: diplomatist, impetuosity, imputations, multipiston, pantomimist, patriotisms. | |
+4 letters: antinepotism, competitions, diplomatists, impartations, impetrations, importations, optimalities, optimisation, overoptimist, pantomimists, postfeminist, postmidnight, trampolinist. | |
+5 letters: antinepotisms, comparativist, impetuosities, implantations, importunities, micropipettes, multihospital, optimisations, optimizations, overoptimists, pigmentations, primatologist, protactiniums, protectionism, temporalities, thigmotropism, trampolinists, trimethoprims. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Crosswords 3. Usage: Modern 4. Usage: Commercial | 5. Images: Slideshow 6. Images: Photo Album 7. Images: Digital Art 8. Quotations: Familiar | 9. Quotations: Non-fiction 10. Quotations: Speeches 11. Usage Frequency 12. Expressions: Internet | 13. Translations: Modern 14. Derivations 15. Rhymes 16. Anagrams | 17. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
