hopeful

1. 1.

   an ambitious and aspiring young person

   “a lofty aspirant”

   “two executive hopefuls joined the firm”

   “the audience was full of Madonna wannabes”

   Synonymsaspirantaspirerwannabewannabee

   Broaderapplicant

Other forms of hopeful

plural

hopefuls·

comparative

hopefuller·

superlative

hopefullest·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about hopeful

What does hopeful mean?

hopeful means "having or manifesting hope". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in hopeful?

hopeful has 2 syllables: hope-ful. The stress falls on "hope". In IPA it is /ˈhoʊpfəl/.

What is another word for hopeful?

Close synonyms include bright, promising, aspirant, aspirer, wannabe. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

What is the opposite of hopeful?

The recorded antonyms are hopeless.

Is hopeful a common word?

hopeful is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.