HOPEFUL

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does hopeful mean? 

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

1. an ambitious and aspiring young person

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

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

1. having or manifesting hope

2. likely to turn out well in the future

  Familiarity information: HOPEFUL used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• HOPEFUL (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

An ambitious and aspiring young person

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

aspirant; aspirer; hopeful; wannabe; wannabee

Context example:

the audience was full of Madonna wannabes

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

applicant; applier (a person who requests or seeks something such as assistance or employment or admission)

Derivation:

hopeful (likely to turn out well in the future)

hopeful (having or manifesting hope)

• HOPEFUL (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Having or manifesting hope

Context example:

found a hopeful way of attacking the problem

Similar:

anticipant; anticipative; expectant (marked by eager anticipation)

Also:

encouraging (giving courage or confidence or hope)

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

Antonym:

hopeless (without hope because there seems to be no possibility of comfort or success)

Derivation:

hopeful (an ambitious and aspiring young person)

hopefulness (the feeling you have when you have hope)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Likely to turn out well in the future

Synonyms:

bright; hopeful; promising

Context example:

a hopeful new singer on Broadway

Similar:

auspicious (auguring favorable circumstances and good luck)

Derivation:

hopeful (an ambitious and aspiring young person)

hopefulness (full of hope)

 Context examples 

But what I have to do is to come to results; which are short enough; not to gossip on all the hopeful circumstances I have observed, or I shall never have done.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I suppose that nature works on such a hopeful basis that we believe against ourselves that things will be as they ought to be, not as we should know that they will be.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

At other times I seriously contemplated suicide, and the whole force of my hopeful philosophy was required to keep me from going over the side in the darkness of night.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

A question about whether an individual feels or felt hopeful about the future.

(Hopeful About Future, NCI Thesaurus)

The archer approached it, rolling back the sleeves of his jerkin, but with no very hopeful countenance, for indeed it was a mighty rock.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

We’re hopeful that this combination will help these children.

(Scientists find promising drug combination against lethal childhood brain cancers, National Institutes of Health)

She even considered it the hopeful side of the situation, believing that sooner or later it would arouse him and compel him to abandon his writing.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Do you think he is hopeful?

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

"If something very pleasant should happen now, we should think it a delightful month," said Beth, who took a hopeful view of everything, even November.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) Are you hopeful about the future?

(GDS - Hopeful About Future, NCI Thesaurus)