Lexic.us

Definition of Pessimism

1. Noun. The feeling that things will turn out badly.

2. Noun. A general disposition to look on the dark side and to expect the worst in all things.

Definition of Pessimism

1. n. The opinion or doctrine that everything in nature is ordered for or tends to the worst, or that the world is wholly evil; -- opposed to optimism.

Definition of Pessimism

1. Noun. A general belief that bad things will happen. ¹

2. Noun. The doctrine that this world is the worst of all possible worlds. ¹

¹ Source: wiktionary.com

Definition of Pessimism

1. [n -S]

Medical Definition of Pessimism

1. 1. The opinion or doctrine that everything in nature is ordered for or tends to the worst, or that the world is wholly evil; opposed to optimism. 2. A disposition to take the least hopeful view of things. Origin: L. Pessimus worst, superl. Of pejor worse: cf. F. Pessimisme. Cf. Impair. Source: Websters Dictionary (01 Mar 1998)

Lexicographical Neighbors of Pessimism

peskiest peskily peskiness peskinesses pesky peso peso ley pesos pessary cell pessary corpuscle

pessima pessimal pessimally pessimism (current term) pessimisms pessimist pessimistic pessimistical pessimistically pessimists

pessimize pessimized pessimizes pessimizing pessimum pessimum(a) pessimums pessulus

Literary usage of Pessimism

Below you will find example usage of this term as found in modern and/or classical literature:

1. A History of Modern Philosophy: A Sketch of the History of Philosophy from by Harald Høffding (1908)
"(y9) pessimism and Ethics Hartmann assures us it would be a great mistake to suppose that he is a pessimist by temperament; he teaches pessimism merely as a ..."

2. Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology: Including Many of the Principal by James Mark Baldwin (1905)
"Bonn, 1855. Alezander, B. Moral order and social progress. Lond., 1883, pp. 335-333. Andrews, EB pessimism and theodicy. Baptist Rev., ii, 377. ..."

3. The Contemporary Review (1893)
"pessimism AND PROGRESS. failure of modern pessimism to be permanently attractive, either in its emotional or in its rational form, to more than a ill ..."

4. New Englander and Yale Review by Edward Royall Tyler, William Lathrop Kingsley, George Park Fisher, Timothy Dwight (1888)
"PRACTICAL pessimism. pessimism, which may fairly be called the science of despair, has of late come into prominent notice again through the fashionable ..."

5. The Quarterly Review by John Gibson Lockhart, George Walter Prothero, William Gifford, Sir John Taylor Coleridge, Whitwell Elwin, William Macpherson, Baron Rowland Edmund Prothero Ernle, Sir William Smith (1902)
"Byron struck the keynote of revolt against the existing order ; Schopenhauer, ' the sardonic sage,' though no less passionate in his misanthropic pessimism, ..."

6. Introduction to Ethics by Frank Thilly (1900)
"CHAPTER X OPTIMISM VERSUS pessimism» 1. Optimism and pessimism. — We said that the end or aim of human life, ie, the highest good, was the exercise of human ..."

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