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Pollyannaism. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
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English
Alternative forms
Etymology
Pollyanna + -ism
Noun
Pollyannaism (uncountable)
- Persistent irrational optimism.
- Synonym: Panglossianism
- Antonyms: cynicalness, cynicism, pessimism, realisticness, realism
- Hypernyms: naivete, naïveté, unrealisticness
- Hyponym: Pollyanna creep
1975 May 9, Germaine Greer, “At the U.N., Women’s Year ‘of Disgrace’”, in New York Times:[…] some good guys at the Secretariat decided that 1975 should be International Women’s Year. ¶ It is typical of the special brand of United Nations Pollyannaism that they did so regardless of the fact that Secretariat hiring policies are grossly discriminatory.
1988, Edmund White, chapter 1, in The Beautiful Room is Empty, New York: Vintage International, published 1994:I realize one self-evaluation is as true as another and that my mother’s relentless Pollyannism was a less melancholy and more efficient way of muddling through than my gloom or my sister’s saturnine honesty.
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