Pollyannaism
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English
[edit]Alternative forms
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Noun
[edit]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.