PESSIMIST

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does pessimist mean? 

• PESSIMIST (noun)
  The noun PESSIMIST has 1 sense:

1. a person who expects the worst

  Familiarity information: PESSIMIST used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PESSIMIST (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A person who expects the worst

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("pessimist" is a kind of...):

doubter; sceptic; skeptic (someone who habitually doubts accepted beliefs)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "pessimist"):

defeatist; negativist (someone who is resigned to defeat without offering positive suggestions)

Antonym:

optimist (a person disposed to take a favorable view of things)

Derivation:

pessimism (a general disposition to look on the dark side and to expect the worst in all things)

pessimism (the feeling that things will turn out badly)

 Context examples 

You call me a pessimist.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

"Civilization's going to pieces," broke out Tom violently. "I've gotten to be a terrible pessimist about things. Have you read 'The Rise of the Coloured Empires' by this man Goddard?"

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)