"meliorism" meaning in English

See meliorism in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

IPA: /ˈmiːlɪəɹɪz(ə)m/ [UK] Forms: meliorisms [plural]
Etymology: From Latin melior (“better”) + -ism. Reportedly coined by British author George Eliot in her letters, published in 1877. Etymology templates: {{der|en|la|melior||better}} Latin melior (“better”), {{suffix|en||ism}} + -ism Head templates: {{en-noun|~}} meliorism (countable and uncountable, plural meliorisms)
  1. The view or doctrine that the world can be improved through human effort (often understood as an intermediate outlook between optimism and pessimism). Wikipedia link: George Eliot, meliorism Tags: countable, uncountable Derived forms: meliorist, melioristic, melioristically Translations (the view that the world can be improved through human effort): мелиори́зм (meliorízm) [masculine] (Russian)

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "la",
        "3": "melior",
        "4": "",
        "5": "better"
      },
      "expansion": "Latin melior (“better”)",
      "name": "der"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "",
        "3": "ism"
      },
      "expansion": "+ -ism",
      "name": "suffix"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From Latin melior (“better”) + -ism. Reportedly coined by British author George Eliot in her letters, published in 1877.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "meliorisms",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "~"
      },
      "expansion": "meliorism (countable and uncountable, plural meliorisms)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms suffixed with -ism",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Entries with translation boxes",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 2 entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Russian translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "derived": [
        {
          "word": "meliorist"
        },
        {
          "word": "melioristic"
        },
        {
          "word": "melioristically"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1966 May 6, “Forever Beginning”, in Time:",
          "text": "At the convention, the official mood was traditional Methodist meliorism.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin, published 2003, page 371:",
          "text": "Enclaves of meritocratic and virtuous sociability, the lodges exuded […] a thoroughgoing meliorism.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The view or doctrine that the world can be improved through human effort (often understood as an intermediate outlook between optimism and pessimism)."
      ],
      "id": "en-meliorism-en-noun-7qQi~MCH",
      "links": [
        [
          "doctrine",
          "doctrine"
        ],
        [
          "world",
          "world"
        ],
        [
          "improve",
          "improve"
        ],
        [
          "effort",
          "effort"
        ],
        [
          "intermediate",
          "intermediate"
        ],
        [
          "optimism",
          "optimism"
        ],
        [
          "pessimism",
          "pessimism"
        ]
      ],
      "tags": [
        "countable",
        "uncountable"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "ru",
          "lang": "Russian",
          "roman": "meliorízm",
          "sense": "the view that the world can be improved through human effort",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "мелиори́зм"
        }
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "George Eliot",
        "meliorism"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈmiːlɪəɹɪz(ə)m/",
      "tags": [
        "UK"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "meliorism"
}
{
  "derived": [
    {
      "word": "meliorist"
    },
    {
      "word": "melioristic"
    },
    {
      "word": "melioristically"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "la",
        "3": "melior",
        "4": "",
        "5": "better"
      },
      "expansion": "Latin melior (“better”)",
      "name": "der"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "",
        "3": "ism"
      },
      "expansion": "+ -ism",
      "name": "suffix"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From Latin melior (“better”) + -ism. Reportedly coined by British author George Eliot in her letters, published in 1877.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "meliorisms",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "~"
      },
      "expansion": "meliorism (countable and uncountable, plural meliorisms)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms derived from Latin",
        "English terms suffixed with -ism",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English uncountable nouns",
        "Entries with translation boxes",
        "Pages with 2 entries",
        "Pages with entries",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned",
        "Terms with Russian translations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1966 May 6, “Forever Beginning”, in Time:",
          "text": "At the convention, the official mood was traditional Methodist meliorism.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin, published 2003, page 371:",
          "text": "Enclaves of meritocratic and virtuous sociability, the lodges exuded […] a thoroughgoing meliorism.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The view or doctrine that the world can be improved through human effort (often understood as an intermediate outlook between optimism and pessimism)."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "doctrine",
          "doctrine"
        ],
        [
          "world",
          "world"
        ],
        [
          "improve",
          "improve"
        ],
        [
          "effort",
          "effort"
        ],
        [
          "intermediate",
          "intermediate"
        ],
        [
          "optimism",
          "optimism"
        ],
        [
          "pessimism",
          "pessimism"
        ]
      ],
      "tags": [
        "countable",
        "uncountable"
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "George Eliot",
        "meliorism"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈmiːlɪəɹɪz(ə)m/",
      "tags": [
        "UK"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "ru",
      "lang": "Russian",
      "roman": "meliorízm",
      "sense": "the view that the world can be improved through human effort",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "мелиори́зм"
    }
  ],
  "word": "meliorism"
}

Download raw JSONL data for meliorism meaning in English (2.2kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-12-08 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-12-04 using wiktextract (bb46d54 and 0c3c9f6). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.