Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use pessimism in a sentence

18 example sentences · noun

Pessimism means a general belief that bad things will happen. Example: “Bourgeois novels were full of pessimism, their authors had sold out to capitalism and their heroes were mostly thieves, prostitutes, spies, and hooligans.”

Examples of pessimism by meaning

nounA general belief that bad things will happen.

  • Bourgeois novels were full of pessimism, their authors had sold out to capitalism and their heroes were mostly thieves, prostitutes, spies, and hooligans.1978 [1976], Leszek Kołakowski, translated by P[aul] S[teven] Falla, Main Currents of Marxism, volume III: The Breakdown, Oxford: Clarendon...
  • But it has the same punchy energy, the same defiant pessimism, and there’s nothing around like it.2017 January 19, Peter Bradshaw, “T2 Trainspotting review – choose a sequel that doesn't disappoint”, in The Guardian

More sentences with pessimism

  • That pessimism might be harder to fix than an actual downturn.2026 May 24, Annie Lowrey, “Americans Refuse to Be Happy”, in Jeffrey Goldberg, editor, The Atlantic, Washington, D.C.: The Atlantic…. From the entry permacession
  • Introverts tend to be closed, timid, cautious, and prone to pessimism.2011, Barbara Killinger, Achieving Inner Balance in Anxious Times. From the entry forethinker
  • To understand China’s glowing optimism, we need to understand its enduring pessimism, and vice versa.2010, William A. Callahan, China: The Pessoptimist Nation, Oxford University Press, →DOI, →ISBN, page 9. From the entry pessoptimist
  • For one thing, the vision of the story is pure Lovecraftian cosmic pessimism.2006, A. Blackwood, August Derleth, The Ithaqua Cycle, page 102. From the entry Lovecraftian
  • Pessimism was heresy in Bushland—the relentlessly upbeat Karl Rove wouldn’t hear of it.2004, Evan Thomas, with reporting by the staff of Newsweek, Election 2004: How Bush Won and What You Can Expect in the Future, →ISBN, page…. From the entry Bushite
  • Gone are the dark days of myopic ruinism and the primitive huts of fragmented postmodern pessimism.1983, Arts & Architecture - Volume 2, page 14. From the entry ruinism
  • If the child's needs are not adequately met in this age, the following traits may develop: pessimism, demandism, frustration and jealousy.2015, Jyotsna Rao, QRS for BDS 4th Year-Community Dentistry, page 186. From the entry demandism
  • Now that the financial crisis has derailed BRIC and rich country alike, there are many good reasons for pessimism.2009 February 4, Aliza Rosenbaum, Edward Hadas, “Buffett Pays Low for Another Icon”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on…. From the entry BRIC
  • The earliest known age of pessimism and disillusionment ensued.1935, James H. Breasted, chapter II, in The Dawn of Conscience, pages 20–21. From the entry messianism
  • The belief in a romantic chaos lends itself to pessimism, but it also lends itself to absolute self-assertion.1916, George Santayana, Egotism in German Philosophy. From the entry lend itself to
  • Fortunately for all of us, the rhetoric of both cultural pessimism and postmodernism contains more than its fair share of exaggeration and overgeneralization.1988 November 11, Andrew Goodwin, “Reading: The Cultural Crash of '89”, in Chicago Reader. From the entry overgeneralization
  • I am an optimist at bottom, with a superficial coating of pessimism, which thaws near a piano, a pretty girl, or a glass of Pilsner.1918, James Gibbons Huneker, “Jim the Penman”, in Steeplejack, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC, part I (In Old…. From the entry pilsner
  • Philosopher Patricia MacCormack, who proudly dons the mantles of antinatalism and human extinctionism, finds herself “ambivalent about pessimism,” which she correctly regards as an overly masculine discourse.2018, Joseph Packer, Ethan Stoneman, A Feeling of Wrongness: Pessimistic Rhetoric on the Fringes of Popular Culture, Penn State Press, →ISBN. From the entry extinctionism
  • He represented my quiddity I suppose – the part which, thanks to you, has converted a black pessimism about life into a belief in cosmic absurdity.1978, Lawrence Durrell, Livia (Avignon Quintet), Faber & Faber, published 1992, page 352. From the entry quiddity
  • There are those that have combined pessimism and optimism, giving rise to “The Pessoptimist.” It is the unfiltered thought and transparent conflict in the minds of today’s well-intentioned common human.2023, Terry Lee Murphy, Umbrella Analysis, Ankeny, Iowa, →ISBN, page 80. From the entry pessoptimist
  • It was used by Oswald Spengler in his monumental post-first world war tract of German cultural pessimism, Der Untergang des Abendlandes, only weakly translated as The Decline of the West.2015 January 18, Timothy Garton Ash, “Germany’s anti-Islamic movement Pegida is a vampire we must slay”, in The Guardian. From the entry cultural pessimism

Meaning of pessimism

  1. noun A general belief that bad things will happen.
  2. noun The doctrine that this world is the worst of all possible worlds.
  3. noun The condition of being pessimal.

Full definition of pessimism

Questions about pessimism in a sentence

How do you use pessimism in a sentence?
Pessimism is used as a noun. For example: “Bourgeois novels were full of pessimism, their authors had sold out to capitalism and their heroes were mostly thieves, prostitutes, spies, and hooligans.”
What is a short sentence with pessimism?
“The earliest known age of pessimism and disillusionment ensued.”
What does pessimism mean?
Pessimism means a general belief that bad things will happen.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pessimism (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use pessimism in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/pessimism. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.