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English
Etymology
From French pessimiste, from Latin pessimus (“worst”) + -ist.
Pronunciation
Noun
pessimist (plural pessimists)
- Someone who habitually expects the worst outcome; one who looks on the dark side of things.
- Antonym: optimist
- Hyponyms: bear (in finance), declinist
1940 September 29, “Letters Reveal Ordeals in France”, in The New York Times, page 12:I will not marry a pessimist, a born loser, a fellow who has no fight in him.
1947 September 27, Richard R. Werry, “An American Beginning for International Education”, in School and Society, volume 66, number 1709, Lancaster, Pa.: The Society for the Advancement of Education, Inc., page 238:We are becoming as a nation, as a world, indeed, atom-conscious. Many of us are already afflicted with atomphobia, though so far it has manifested itself only in a mirage of autoaeromotive discs and a war of words between chronic optimists and empirical pessimists concerning civilization’s probable future.
Derived terms
Translations
someone who habitually expects the worst outcome
- Arabic: مُتَشَائِم (mutašāʔim)
- Armenian: հոռետես (hy) (hoṙetes)
- Azerbaijani: bədbin (az), bədbin adam
- Belarusian: песіміст m (pjesimist)
- Bulgarian: песимист (bg) m (pesimist)
- Catalan: pessimista (ca) m or f
- Chinese:
- Mandarin: 悲觀主義者/悲观主义者 (zh) (bēiguānzhǔyìzhě)
- Corsican: pessimistu m
- Czech: pesimista (cs) m, škarohlíd (cs) m
- Danish: pessimist (da) c, sortseer c
- Dutch: zwartdenker m, doemdenker (nl) m, pessimist (nl) m
- Esperanto: (♂♀) pesimisto, (♀) pesimistino, (♂♀) nigravidulo
- Estonian: pessimist (et)
- Finnish: pessimisti (fi)
- French: pessimiste (fr) m or f
- Galician: pesimista m or f
- German: Pessimist (de) m, Pessimistin (de) f
- Greek: απαισιόδοξος (el) (apaisiódoxos)
- Hungarian: pesszimista (hu)
- Icelandic: svartsýnismaður m
- Ido: pesimisto (io)
- Indonesian: pesimis (id)
- Irish: duarcán m
- Italian: pessimista (it) m or f
- Japanese: 悲観主義者 (ひかんしゅぎしゃ, hikanshugisha), 厭世家 (えんせいか, enseika), ペシミスト (ja) (peshimisuto)
- Korean: 염세가 (ko) (yeomsega)
- Kyrgyz: пессимист (pessimist)
- Macedonian: песимист m (pesimist)
- Manx: doo-aignagh
- Norman: pessimiste m or f
- Norwegian:
- Bokmål: pessimist m
- Nynorsk: pessimist m
- Polish: pesymista (pl) m, pesymistka (pl) f, czarnowidz (pl) m
- Portuguese: pessimista (pt) m or f
- Romanian: pesimist (ro) m, pesimistă (ro) f
- Romansch: pessimist m, pessimista f
- Russian: пессими́ст (ru) m (pessimíst), пессими́стка (ru) f (pessimístka)
- Serbo-Croatian:
- Cyrillic: песѝмист m
- Roman: pesìmist (sh) m
- Slovak: pesimista m
- Slovenian: pesimíst m
- Spanish: pesimista (es) m or f, agorero (es) m
- Swedish: pessimist (sv) c
- Telugu: నిరాశావాది (te) (nirāśāvādi)
- Tibetan: ཡིད་ཆད་རིང་ལུགས་པ (yid chad ring lugs pa)
- Turkish: pesimist (tr), kötümser (tr), karamsar (tr), bedbin (tr)
- Ukrainian: песимі́ст m (pesymíst)
- Uzbek: pessimist (uz)
- Volapük: (♂♀) badiman (vo), (♂) hibadiman, (♀) jibadiman
- Welsh: pesimist m
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Danish
Noun
pessimist c (singular definite pessimisten, plural indefinite pessimister)
- pessimist
Declension
Antonyms
Dutch
Pronunciation
Noun
pessimist m (plural pessimisten, diminutive pessimistje n, feminine pessimiste)
- pessimist
Synonyms
Descendants
Norwegian Bokmål
Noun
pessimist m (definite singular pessimisten, indefinite plural pessimister, definite plural pessimistene)
- a pessimist
Antonyms
References
Norwegian Nynorsk
Noun
pessimist m (definite singular pessimisten, indefinite plural pessimistar, definite plural pessimistane)
- a pessimist
Antonyms
References
Swedish
Noun
pessimist c
- a pessimist
- Antonym: optimist
Declension
References