Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun One who usually expects a favorable outcome.
  • noun A believer in philosophical optimism.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun One who believes in the metaphysical doctrine of optimism.
  • noun One who believes in the present or ultimate supremacy of good over evil; one who always hopes for and expects the best; a person of hopeful disposition.
  • Of or pertaining to optimism; optimistic: as, the optimist view.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Metaph.) One who holds the opinion that all events are ordered for the best.
  • noun One who looks on the bright side of things, or takes hopeful views; one who experiences optimism{2}; -- opposed to pessimist.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A person who expects a favourable outcome.
  • noun A believer in optimism.
  • noun A small centre-board sailing dinghy designed to train and introduce young children into sailing.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a person disposed to take a favorable view of things

Etymologies

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Examples

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  • JM wonders if an optimist is a very dense fog and a bigamist is even denser.

    July 4, 2011