Word.ws English Dictionary

Pollyanna creep

Pollyanna creep noun: the practice of a government modifying the way that economic measures are calculated, in order to give a more optimistic impression of economic development.

Noun

Pollyanna creep (uncountable)

  1. The practice of a government modifying the way that economic measures are calculated, in order to give a more optimistic impression of economic development.

Origin of Pollyanna creep

Coined by the economic analyst and statistician John Williams, from Pollyanna (“one who is persistently cheerful and optimistic”).

Questions about Pollyanna creep

What does Pollyanna creep mean?
Pollyanna creep means the practice of a government modifying the way that economic measures are calculated, in order to give a more optimistic impression of economic development.
What part of speech is Pollyanna creep?
Pollyanna creep is a noun.

Words near Pollyanna creep in the dictionary

  1. polly-foxed
  2. polly-foxes
  3. polly-foxing
  4. Pollyanish
  5. pollyanna
  6. Pollyanna creep
  7. pollyanna-ish
  8. pollyannaish
  9. Pollyannaishly
  10. Pollyannaism
  11. pollyannas

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Pollyanna creep (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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