meliorism
noun
Did you know?
In 1877, British novelist George Eliot believed she had coined meliorist when she wrote, "I don't know that I ever heard anybody use the word 'meliorist' except myself." Her contemporaries credited her with coining both meliorist and meliorism, and one of her letters contains an early documented use of meliorism; however, there is evidence that meliorist had been around decades before she started using it. Whoever coined it did so by drawing on the Latin melior, meaning "better." It is likely that the English coinages were also influenced by another melior descendant, meliorate, a synonym of ameliorate ("to make better or more tolerable") that was introduced to English in the 1500s.
Example Sentences
Idrees Kahloon, The New Yorker, 16 May 2022 Goodhart reckons the positional nature of status — man’s envy plays a part in this puzzle, mind you — and the kind of economic meliorism that the center-left of his formative years applies to income inequality may fail to do the trick this time. Jorge González-gallarza Hernández, National Review, 6 Dec. 2020 To its critics, this modesty and meliorism represent cowardice. Rosa Inocencio Smith, The Atlantic, 10 Aug. 2017 Word History
1877, in the meaning defined above
meliorism
noun
Synonyms & Similar Words
- idealism
- hopefulness
- optimism
- cheerfulness
- rosiness
- brightness
- sunniness
- sanguinity
- perkiness
- hope
- bullishness
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
- pessimism
- skepticism
- concern
- cynicism
- apprehension
- despair
- caution
- pragmatism
- hopelessness
- realism
- discouragement
- desperation
- bearishness
- gloom
- cheerlessness
- bleakness
- disheartenment
- gloominess
- dreariness