pollyannaish

comparative more pollyannaish · superlative most pollyannaish

1. alternativeAlternative form of Pollyannaish.

comparative more Pollyannaish · superlative most Pollyannaish · alternative pollyanna-ish · alternative Pollyanna-ish · alternative pollyannaish · alternative pollyannish · alternative Pollyannish

1. derogatoryUnreasonably optimistic.

   Accordingly the objection “Is not optimalism simply too Pollyanna-ish to be plausible?” can be met effectively.

   2000 June, Nicholas Rescher, “Optimalism and Axiological Metaphysics”, in The Review of Metaphysics, LIII, № 4, § iii, page 819

   3 more examples

   Even long before this choice of character of the year was made, critics were complaining about the [Chinese] government’s Pollyannaish touting of mèng 梦, saying that the dreams of most people were in vain.

   2012 December 25, Victor Mair, “Chinese character of the year: mèng 梦 (‘dream’)”, in Language Log

   If that sounds a little bit Pollyannaish, it’s because Schmidhuber’s own experience[…]must have taught him that competition can create losers as well as winners.

   2017 April 18, Philip Oltermann, “Jürgen Schmidhuber on the robot future: ‘They will pay as much attention to us as we do to ants'”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

   On this basis, Bridle argues, it’s possible to conceive of a new kind of “guardianship” of our frazzled planet and its poisoned wells, one in which we all work together. This seems Pollyanna-ish as much as Panglossian to me […]

   2018 June 30, Will Self, “New Dark Age by James Bridle review – technology and the end of the future”, in The Guardian

   Synonyms: Panglossian