Word.ws English Dictionary

looking on the bright side

looking on the bright side is the present participle and gerund of look on the bright side.

Meaning of look on the bright side

Verb

look on the bright side (third-person singular simple present looks on the bright side, present participle looking on the bright side, simple past and past participle looked on the bright side)

  1. (idiomatic) To examine a situation, usually unfavorable, from a positive perspective; to be cheerful or optimistic.
    • Look on the bright side. At least having a broken leg means Joyce will have to do the TPS reports until they remember to send your laptop over.

Questions about looking on the bright side

What is looking on the bright side the present participle and gerund of?
Looking on the bright side is the present participle and gerund of look on the bright side.

Words near looking on the bright side in the dictionary

  1. looking lively
  2. looking off
  3. looking on
  4. looking on as
  5. looking on the black side
  6. looking on the bright side
  7. looking on the bright side of it
  8. looking on the dark side
  9. looking on the dark side of it
  10. looking on the gloomy side
  11. looking on the positive side

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: looking on the bright side (page history and authors); look on the bright side (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “looking on the bright side.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/looking_on_the_bright_side. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.