hope

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See also: Hope and hopë

English

Pronunciation

Etymology 1

From Middle English hopen, from Old English hopian (hope), from Proto-West Germanic *hopōn, further etymology unclear.

Verb

hope (third-person singular simple present hopes, present participle hoping, simple past and past participle hoped)

  1. (intransitive, transitive) To want something to happen, with a sense of expectation that it might.
    I hope everyone enjoyed the meal.
    I am still hoping that all will turn out well.
    • 1918, W B Maxwell, chapter X, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
      He looked round the poor room, at the distempered walls, and the bad engravings in meretricious frames, the crinkly paper and wax flowers on the chiffonier; and he thought of a room like Father Bryan's, with panelling, with cut glass, with tulips in silver pots, such a room as he had hoped to have for his own.
    • 1961 October, “The winter timetables of British Railways: Southern Region”, in Trains Illustrated, page 593:
      It is to be hoped that some corresponding smartening up of these other schedules may be expected before long.
    • 2013 June 8, “Obama goes troll-hunting”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8839, page 55:
      The solitary, lumbering trolls of Scandinavian mythology would sometimes be turned to stone by exposure to sunlight. Barack Obama is hoping that several measures announced on June 4th will have a similarly paralysing effect on their modern incarnation, the patent troll.
  2. To be optimistic; be full of hope; have hopes.
  3. (intransitive) To place confidence; to trust with confident expectation of good; usually followed by in.
  4. (transitive, dialectal, nonstandard) To wish.
    I hope you all the best.
Usage notes
Antonyms
  • (antonym(s) of to want something to happen, with the expectation it might): wish
Derived terms
Translations
See also

Etymology 2

From Middle English hope, from Old English hopa (hope, expectation), from the same source as the verb hope.

Noun

hope (countable and uncountable, plural hopes)

  1. (countable or uncountable) The feeling of trust, confidence, belief or expectation that something wished for can or will happen.
    I still have some hope that I can get to work on time.
    After losing my job, there's no hope of being able to afford my world cruise.
    There is still hope that we can find our missing cat.
    • 1913, Joseph C Lincoln, chapter III, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
      My hopes wa'n't disappointed. I never saw clams thicker than they was along them inshore flats. I filled my dreener in no time, and then it come to me that 'twouldn't be a bad idee to get a lot more, take 'em with me to Wellmouth, and peddle 'em out.
  2. (countable) The actual thing wished for.
  3. (countable) A person or thing that is a source of hope.
    We still have one hope left: my roommate might see the note I left on the table.
  4. (Christianity, uncountable) The virtuous desire for future good.
Derived terms
Translations
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Etymology 3

From Middle English hope (a valley), from Old English hōp (found only in placenames). More at hoop.

Noun

hope (plural hopes)

  1. (Should we move, merge or split(+) this sense?) (Northern England, Scotland) A hollow; a valley, especially the upper end of a narrow mountain valley when it is nearly encircled by smooth, green slopes; a combe.

Etymology 4

From Icelandic hóp (a small bay or inlet). Cognate with English hoop.

Noun

hope (plural hopes)

  1. (Should we move, merge or split(+) this sense?) A sloping plain between mountain ridges.
  2. (Scotland) A small bay; an inlet; a haven.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for hope”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

Anagrams

Dutch

Pronunciation

Verb

hope

  1. (dated or formal) singular present subjunctive of hopen

Maori

Noun

hope

  1. waist
  2. hip (ringa hope)

Middle English

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Old English hopa.

Pronunciation

Noun

hope (plural hopes)

  1. trust, confidence; wishful desire; expectation

Descendants

  • English: hope
  • Yola: hopes (plural)

References

Shona

Etymology

From the root of Common Bantu *dʊ̀kópè, whence also chikope (eyelid).

Noun

hópé class 10

  1. sleep

Spanish

Verb

hope

  1. only used in me hope, first-person singular present subjunctive of hoparse
  2. only used in se hope, third-person singular present subjunctive of hoparse
  3. only used in se ... hope, syntactic variant of hópese, third-person singular imperative of hoparse

West Frisian

Pronunciation

Noun

hope n (no plural)

  1. Alternative form of hoop