Pollyannaish

Pollyannaish

See also: pollyannaish and Pollyanna-ish

English

Alternative forms

• (with the first element Pollyanna) pollyanna-ish, Pollyanna-ish, pollyannaish, Pollyannaish
• (with the first element Pollyann) pollyannish, Pollyannish

Etymology

Pollyanna +‎ -ish

Adjective

Pollyannaish (comparative more Pollyannaish, superlative most Pollyannaish)

1. (derogatory) Unreasonably optimistic.
   • 2000 June, Nicholas Rescher, “Optimalism and Axiological Metaphysics” in The Review of Metaphysics LIII, № 4, § iii, page 819:

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

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

     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.

   • 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 0261-3077:

     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.

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

     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 […]

Synonyms

• Panglossian

Translations

unreasonably optimistic

German: Milchmädchen- Spanish: demasiado optimista