optimism

英文词源

optimism

optimism: [18] Etymologically as well as semantically, optimism means hoping for ‘the best’. It was coined in French (as optimisme) in 1737 as a term for the doctrine of the German philosopher Leibnitz (1646–1716) that the world is as good as it could possibly be. It was based on Latin optimum (source also of English optimum [19]), the neuter case of optimus ‘best’. This may have been formed from the preposition ob ‘in front of’ and a superlative suffix.

optimism (n.)

1759 (in translations of Voltaire), from French optimisme (1737), from Modern Latin optimum, used by Gottfried Leibniz (in "Théodicée," 1710) to mean "the greatest good," from Latin optimus "the best" (see optimum). The doctrine holds that the actual world is the "best of all possible worlds," in which the creator accomplishes the most good at the cost of the least evil.

En termes de l'art, il l'appelle la raison du meilleur ou plus savamment encore, et Theologiquement autant que Géométriquement, le systême de l'Optimum, ou l'Optimisme. [Mémoires de Trévoux, Feb. 1737]

Launched out of philosophical jargon and into currency by Voltaire's satire on it in "Candide." General sense of "belief that good ultimately will prevail in the world" first attested 1841 in Emerson; meaning "tendency to take a hopeful view of things" first recorded 1819 in Shelley.