glass half-empty
2
6.5
- idiom
- Informal
:
perspectiva pesimista
- Here's a fact that you can use to test whether you're a glass-half-empty or glass-half-full kind of person.
- glass half-empty or half-full
- see the glass half-empty
And so I'm at once picking up a sort of pessimistic glass half empty view of the world as well as a glass half full view.
- And so I'm at once picking up a sort of pessimistic glass half empty view of the world as well as a glass half full view.
- I've I've kind of realized talking to other peoples of international origins and it's kind of like the glass half empty, glass half full question.
- So I think it grew a lot more the older I've got in terms of severity of being, being, you know, I've always been a bit glass half empty sort of man.
Examples
-
"Is the glass half empty, or half full?"
Blog text (8) -
One of the columnists, Sarah Hampson, has a semi-regular feature on relationships with a tendency to view marriage as a glass half empty.
Blog text (20) -
Depends if you see the glass half empty or half full.
Blog text (21) -
This would depend on whether you are a "glass half full" or "glass half empty" kind of guy.
Blog text (26) -
Is the glass half-empty or half-full?
Academic text (2008) -
The second problem is that liberals tend to be glass-half-empty people.
Blog text (33) -
So I think it grew a lot more the older I've got in terms of severity of being, being, you know, I've always been a bit glass half empty sort of man.
-
Conditioned by this crisis-du-jour mentality, we see the glass half-empty rather than half-full, even when it is really nine-tenths full.
Academic text (1995) -
Whether you're alarmed or reassured by this chart from the National Institute for Economic and Social Research probably depends on whether you're a glass half-full or glass half-empty sort of person.
Blog text (23) -
Many people choose to view life from a glass half-empty perspective, focusing on what they lack.
Synonyms
28
4.6
A way of thinking that expects bad things to happen
25
3.9
A person who expects bad things to happen
10
3.5
A way of thinking that expects bad things to happen
1
4.7
A tendency to expect bad things to happen
1
8.9
A person who always expects bad things to happen
A negative way of thinking that expects bad things to happen
A person who always sees the bad side of things and offers no solutions
A person who always sees the bad side of things
Antonyms
How Pessimistic
Surface Forms
Morphology
glass + half-empty
The phrase presents a simple physical image built from transparent parts (glass + half + empty), so a learner who knows those words can often infer a negative or lacking view. However the shift from a literal container state to a conventionalized metaphor for a pessimistic outlook is not purely compositional and depends on cultural usage, so it is partially predictable but not fully transparent.
Etymology
Glass half-empty comes from the simple picture of a drinking glass that is half empty. It describes someone who looks at what is missing instead of what is there, so it means 'pessimistic' or focused on the negative side.