Word.ws English Dictionary

meliorism

UK/ˈmiːlɪəɹɪz(ə)m/

meliorism noun: the view or doctrine that the world can be improved through human effort (often understood as an intermediate outlook between optimism and pessimism).

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).
    • At the convention, the official mood was traditional Methodist meliorism.1966 May 6, “Forever Beginning”, in Time
    • Enclaves of meritocratic and virtuous sociability, the lodges exuded […] a thoroughgoing meliorism.2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin, published 2003, page 371

meliorism meaning in Urdu

meliorism in Urdu

meliorism
اصلاحیت islāhiyat

Forms of meliorism

pluralmeliorisms

Origin of meliorism

From Latin melior (“better”) + -ism. Reportedly coined by British author George Eliot in her letters, published in 1877.

Words formed from meliorism

Questions about meliorism

What does meliorism mean?
Meliorism means the view or doctrine that the world can be improved through human effort (often understood as an intermediate outlook between optimism and pessimism).
What is meliorism in Urdu?
Meliorism in Urdu is اصلاحیت (islāhiyat). See Meliorism meaning in Urdu.
What part of speech is meliorism?
Meliorism is a noun.
How do you pronounce meliorism?
Meliorism is pronounced /ˈmiːlɪəɹɪz(ə)m/ (UK).
What is the plural of meliorism?
The plural of meliorism is meliorisms.

Words near meliorism in the dictionary

  1. meliorative
  2. meliorator
  3. meliorators
  4. meliorbiosis
  5. meliorbiotic
  6. meliorism
  7. meliorisms
  8. meliorist
  9. melioristic
  10. melioristically
  11. meliorists

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: meliorism (page history and authors); اصلاحیت (Urdu) (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: “meliorism.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/meliorism. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.