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upbeat

adj
/ʌpˈbit/

Etymology

From up- + beat.

  1. derived from *bautaną✻ — “to push, strike”
  2. derived from *bautan✻
  3. derived from bēatan — “to beat, pound, strike, lash, dash, thrust, hurt, injure”
  4. inherited from beten
  5. prefixed as upbeat — “up + beat”

Definitions

  1. Having a fast pace, tempo, or beat.

    • The notes are easy, but it's an upbeat tune and should be played fairly quickly.

  2. Having a positive, lively, or perky tone, attitude, etc.

    • Though he had bad news, he ended with an upbeat forecast for the future.
    • He sounded upbeat when I talked to him.
    • But Murphy remains upbeat about the longer-term prospect of recovery and a resumption of the record growth in passenger volumes experienced in the UK in the two decades following privatisation.

  3. An unaccented beat at the start of a musical phrase.

    • The conductor said: I give you three beats for nothing and then you come in on the upbeat.

The neighborhood

  • antonymdownbeatantonym(s) of “optimistic”

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for upbeat. 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