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🙂 Feeling positive 🌟 Promising 🎯 An aspiring person
hopeful

hopeful

189 1.8
Feeling positive and expecting a good result
  • adjective
  • /ˈhoʊpfəl/
translation icon : optimista
  • I was just incredibly hopeful.
  • more hopeful
  • hopeful and optimistic
  • hopeful and cooperative

So what is it to be hopeful and not optimistic?

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Examples

  • The teacher is commissioned to impart both knowledge and a hopeful attitude in all students.

    Academic text (1994)

  • Not yet, though I am hopeful.

    Hannibal (2001)

  • So I, I am very, very hopeful, very excited.

    Variety

  • Oh, I went from being really hopeful to now not hopeful at all.

  • And it made me, yeah, hopeful that things are changing.

    Jay Shetty Podcast

  • And still they remain hopeful and have, you know, have some time.

    Variety

  • Rather, I was almost hopeful that I could feel myself again.

    Mel Robbins

  • "Do you think so?" Charlotte looked hopeful, her eyes wide and very dark.

    Fiction book (1993)

  • And that's why I am hopeful for the future.

  • After the positive meeting, she felt hopeful about the project's future.

Synonyms

positive
vshopeful
695 2.8

Having a confident or approving attitude

is about expecting good outcomes rather than simply showing confidence
optimistic
vshopeful
426 3.2

Expecting good things to happen in the future

is more about feeling desire for good outcomes than mere expectation
upbeat
vshopeful
99 3.8

Feeling cheerful and hopeful, sometimes too positive for the situation

is a calmer positive expectation without energetic or unrealistic tone
rosy
vshopeful
26 3.2

Expecting good things in the future

is the emotional expectation rather than a broad positive view
sanguine
vshopeful
10 7.4

Cheerful and hopeful in a difficult situation

is a general positive expectation not limited to hardship contexts
glass-half-full
vshopeful
  • Informal
3 5.8

Seeing the good side of things

is more about feeling desire for positive outcomes than a general attitude
yeppity
vshopeful
  • Slang
9.9

Feeling very happy, excited, and full of energy

is a steadier expectation without excited or highly energetic tone

Antonyms

hopeless
48 2.5

Feeling no hope about a situation or the future

despairing
4 4.6

Feeling very hopeless and sad

How Hopeful

sanguine
10 7.4
optimistic
426 3.2
hopeful
189 1.8
uncertain
43 3.9
pessimistic
67 3.9
despairing
4 4.6

Surface Forms

hopeful positive
hopefuller comparative
hopefullest superlative

Morphology

hopeful = hope (transparent) = hope + ful

Standard adjectival formation meaning 'full of hope' or 'feeling/showing hope', which is directly derivable from the base.

Etymology

Hopeful is made of hope plus -ful, so it literally means 'full of hope'. That's why to be hopeful is to feel or show that you expect something good to happen.