Word.ws English Dictionary

rose-colored glasses

rose-colored glasses noun: a cognitive or perceptual bias where an individual views something in an overly optimistic or positive light, often failing to recognize its negative aspects.

Noun

rose-colored glasses pl (plural only)

  1. (US, idiomatic, plural, plural-only) A cognitive or perceptual bias where an individual views something in an overly optimistic or positive light, often failing to recognize its negative aspects.
    • Such captivating beauty corresponds to our protagonist’s naive idealism, and the rose-colored glasses through which he views an upper-crust world of dandies and refined intellectuals.2020 October 13, Beatrice Loayza, “Jack London gets an Italian makeover in the tragic and romantic Martin Eden”, in AV Club
  2. (US, plural, plural-only) Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see rose-colored, glasses.

Forms of rose-colored glasses

alternative formrose-coloured glasses
alternative formrose-tinted glasses
alternative formrose-colored lenses
alternative UKrose-coloured spectacles
alternative UKrose-tinted spectacles

Origin of rose-colored glasses

Phrase appears as early as 1830 according to OED. From rose-color or rose-colored (meaning "pleasant"), from the notion that roses are widely regarded as uncommonly beautiful.

Words formed from rose-colored glasses

Questions about rose-colored glasses

What does rose-colored glasses mean?
Rose-colored glasses means a cognitive or perceptual bias where an individual views something in an overly optimistic or positive light, often failing to recognize its negative aspects.
What part of speech is rose-colored glasses?
Rose-colored glasses is a noun.

Words near rose-colored glasses in the dictionary

  1. rose-breasted cockatoo
  2. rose-breasted grosbeak
  3. rose-breasted grosbeaks
  4. rose-bud
  5. rose-colored
  6. rose-colored glasses
  7. rose-colored lenses
  8. rose-colored pastor
  9. rose-colored pastors
  10. rose-colored spectacles
  11. rose-colored starling

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rose-colored glasses (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-rose-colored glasses.ogg.

Cite this entry: “rose-colored glasses.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/rose-colored_glasses. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.