hope

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: hōp, IPA^(key): /həʊp/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /hoʊp/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -əʊp

From Middle English hope, from Old English hopa (“hope, expectation”), from Proto-Germanic *hupô, *hupǭ, *hupō (“hope”), from Proto-Germanic *hupōną (“to hope”), from Proto-Indo-European *kēwp-, *kwēp- (“to smoke, boil”). Cognate with West Frisian hope (“hope”), Dutch hoop (“hope”), Middle High German hoffe (“hope”). Extra-Germanic cognates include Latin cupio (“I desire, crave”) and possibly Latin vapor (“vapor; smoke”).

hope (countable and uncountable, plural hopes)

1. (countable or uncountable) The belief or expectation that something wished for can or will happen.
   • 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 3, in Mr. Pratt's Patients:

     My hopes wa'n't disappointed. I never saw clams thicker than they was along them inshore flats. I filled my dreener in no time, and then it come to me that 'twouldn't be a bad idee to get a lot more, take 'em with me to Wellmouth, and peddle 'em out.

   I still have some hope that I can get to work on time.

   After losing my job, there's no hope of being able to afford my world cruise.

   There is still hope that we can find our missing cat.

2. (countable) The actual thing wished for.
3. (countable) A person or thing that is a source of hope.

   We still have one hope left: my roommate might see the note I left on the table.

4. (Christianity, uncountable) The virtuous desire for future good.
   • The Holy Bible, 1 Corinthians 13:13

     But now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

From Middle English hopen, from Old English hopian (“to expect, hope”), from Proto-Germanic *hupōną (“to hope”), from Proto-Indo-European *kēwp-, *kwēp- (“to smoke, boil”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian hoopje (“to hope”), West Frisian hoopje (“to hope”), Dutch hopen (“to hope”), German hoffen (“to hope”).

hope (third-person singular simple present hopes, present participle hoping, simple past and past participle hoped)

1. (intransitive, transitive) To want something to happen, with a sense of expectation that it might.

   I hope everyone enjoyed the meal.

   I am still hoping that all will turn out well.

   • 1918, W. B. Maxwell, chapter 10, in The Mirror and the Lamp:

     He looked round the poor room, at the distempered walls, and the bad engravings in meretricious frames, the crinkly paper and wax flowers on the chiffonier; and he thought of a room like Father Bryan's, with panelling, with cut glass, with tulips in silver pots, such a room as he had hoped to have for his own.

   • 2013 June 8, “Obama goes troll-hunting”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8839, page 55:

     The solitary, lumbering trolls of Scandinavian mythology would sometimes be turned to stone by exposure to sunlight. Barack Obama is hoping that several measures announced on June 4th will have a similarly paralysing effect on their modern incarnation, the patent troll.

2. To be optimistic; be full of hope; have hopes.
3. (intransitive) To place confidence; to trust with confident expectation of good; usually followed by in.
   • Bible, Psalms cxix. 81

     I hope in thy word.

   • Bible, Psalms xlii. 11

     Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God.

4. (transitive, dialectal, nonstandard) To wish.

   I hope you all the best.

• This is a catenative verb that takes the to infinitive. See Appendix:English catenative verbs

• hoped for

• aspire
• desire
• expect
• look forward
• want

From Middle English hope (“a valley”), from Old English hōp (found only in placenames). More at hoop.

hope (plural hopes)

1. (Northern England, Scotland) A hollow; a valley, especially the upper end of a narrow mountain valley when it is nearly encircled by smooth, green slopes; a comb.

From Icelandic hóp (“a small bay or inlet”). Cognate with English hoop.

hope (plural hopes)

1. A sloping plain between mountain ridges.
2. (Scotland) A small bay; an inlet; a haven.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Jamieson to this entry?)

• pheo

• Audio

  (file)

hope

1. (archaic) singular present subjunctive of hopen

hope

1. waist
2. hip (ringa hope)

• IPA^(key): /ˈhoːpə/

hope n (no plural)

1. Alternative form of hoop