bullish

comparative more bullish · superlative most bullish

1. Having a muscular physique, built ‘like a bull’.
2. Aggressively self-confident or assertive; bullheaded.

   He was heavily criticised for his bullish behaviour.

   1 more example

   Sitting on the edge of the stage at the show’s end, draped in a flag and singing You Need Me, a bullish screw-you written when he was 15, he didn’t look much like a man still plagued by nerves over headlining Glastonbury.

   2017 June 26, Alexis Petridis, “Glastonbury 2017 verdict: Radiohead, Foo Fighters, Lorde, Stormzy and more”, in the Guardian

3. Optimistic, confident; overly or foolishly optimistic or hopeful.

   It [the plan] was bullish about the prospects for BR winning new business and retaining what it had, but recognised that this would depend on the extent to which equipment would enable improved services at lower costs.

   2023 March 8, David Clough, “The long road that led to Beeching”, in RAIL, number 978, pages 41–42

   2 more examples

   This week, BlackRock's Larry Fink noted that sovereign wealth funds had bought the dip by snapping up bitcoin while it traded just above $80,000, in a sign that parts of the investment community remained bullish even as prices fell to their lowest level in eight months.

   2025 December 6, George Steer, Jill R Shah, Nikou Asgari, “Crypto’s rocky year”, in FT Weekend (Big Read section), London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 6

   [P]oliticians across the EU and the Balkans hope that Montenegro’s momentum towards membership will make clear what is possible, and how to do it. The Montenegrin prime minister, Milojko Spajić, is bullish. “Enlargement is drawing even closer,” he said in July, after the country concluded chapters on EU competition policy and its customs union.

   2026 August 7, Henry Foy in Brussels, Marton Dunai in Belgrade, “‘It’s now or never.’ Is the EU serious about letting in new members?”, in Financial Times

   Antonyms: bearish

4. businessCharacterized by rising value.

   Antonyms: bearish