CHEERFUL

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does cheerful mean? 

• CHEERFUL (adjective)
  The adjective CHEERFUL has 2 senses:

1. being full of or promoting cheer; having or showing good spirits

2. pleasantly (even unrealistically) optimistic

  Familiarity information: CHEERFUL used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CHEERFUL (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Being full of or promoting cheer; having or showing good spirits

Context example:

as cheerful as anyone confined to a hospital bed could be

Similar:

beaming; glad (cheerful and bright)

beamish; smiling; twinkly (smiling with happiness or optimism)

blithe; blithesome; light-hearted; lighthearted; lightsome (carefree and happy and lighthearted)

buoyant; chirpy; perky (characterized by liveliness and lightheartedness)

cheery; gay; sunny (bright and pleasant; promoting a feeling of cheer)

chipper; debonair; debonaire; jaunty (having a cheerful, lively, and self-confident air)

Also:

happy (enjoying or showing or marked by joy or pleasure)

glad (showing or causing joy and pleasure; especially made happy)

Attribute:

cheer; cheerfulness; sunniness; sunshine (the quality of being cheerful and dispelling gloom)

Antonym:

depressing (causing sad feelings of gloom and inadequacy)

Derivation:

cheerfulness (the quality of being cheerful and dispelling gloom)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Pleasantly (even unrealistically) optimistic

Synonyms:

cheerful; pollyannaish; upbeat

Similar:

optimistic (expecting the best in this best of all possible worlds)

Derivation:

cheerfulness (a feeling of spontaneous good spirits)

 Context examples 

Mina has been bright and cheerful all the evening.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

If she only would get quite strong and cheerful again, I shouldn't have a wish in the world.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Nilson was as cheerful as could be expected, for his broken leg was knitting nicely; but the Cockney was desperately melancholy, and I was aware of a great sympathy for the unfortunate creature.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

After wandering about and sitting under trees with Fanny all the summer evenings, he had so well talked his mind into submission as to be very tolerably cheerful again.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

With what cheerful ease, what happy, though false, security, had she then looked around her, enjoying everything present, and fearing little in future, beyond Henry's going to Woodston for a day!

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

She was always cheerful from that time.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Upon this, the hurgo and his train withdrew, with much civility and cheerful countenances.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

He had lit his pipe and held his slippered feet to the cheerful blaze of the fire.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He even went out of his way to raise a laugh at his own expense in order to keep things cheerful.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

But we shall have horrors enough before the night is over; for goodness’ sake let us have a quiet pipe and turn our minds for a few hours to something more cheerful.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)