pessoptimist

noun
/pɛsˈɑptɪmɪst/US/pɛsˈɒptɪmɪst/UK

Etymology

Blend of pessimist + optimist, coined by British translator Trevor LeGassick in his 1985 translation of Emile Habibi's 1974 Arabic-language novel The Secret Life of Saeed: The Pessoptimist.

Definitions

  1. A person who possesses elements of both pessimism and optimism.

    • The paradoxical view of the dynamics of the situation explains the meaning of the word “pessoptimist,” coined from the partial merger of “optimist” and “pessimist.”
    • To put it simply, China is a pessoptimist nation. To understand China’s glowing optimism, we need to understand its enduring pessimism, and vice versa.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for pessoptimist. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA