Meanings
nounPangloss (plural Panglosses)
plural Panglosses
- A naively or unreasonably optimistic person.
I am as much a Pangloss as ever, only less contemptuous than I used to be, when I argue how unwise it is to feel contempt for anything.
1797 July, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “LXXIV. To Robert Southey”, in Ernest Hartley Coleridge, editor, Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, volume I, Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, published 1895, page 224
Origin
From Dr. Pangloss, a character in Voltaire's Candide.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
APA
Pangloss. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Pangloss
MLA
“Pangloss.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Pangloss. Accessed November 3, 2026.
Chicago
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Pangloss,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Pangloss.
Source: Pangloss on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.