The disposition to expect good outcomes and to read events in the most hopeful light..
The disposition to expect good outcomes and to read events in the most hopeful light.
The odd member: primarily a disposition, attitude, or worldview rather than a momentary felt emotion — the standing tendency to expect good outcomes. Its nearest relative is hope, but hope is a feeling directed at a specific desired outcome, often against the odds, while optimism is a general, trait-like bias toward expecting good across situations. Unlike neutral anticipation or expectancy, it specifically expects the favorable outcome.
From Modern Latin optimum “the greatest good,” used by Leibniz (Théodicée, 1710), from Latin optimus “the best.” Into English via French optimisme (1737), first appearing in English in 1759 in translations of Voltaire.
An unusually well-documented coinage: it began as 18th-century philosophical jargon tied to Leibniz's doctrine that this is “the best of all possible worlds,” popularized by Voltaire's satire in Candide. The everyday “hopeful outlook” sense is a 19th-century broadening (first recorded 1819, in Shelley). No reliable recent-generation shift.