Word clarification?

Someone asks his boss for a few days' holiday from work. He's optimistic that he'll get it.
---> so he is thinking he will likely get it.

d

thienfoverl I need an example of someone who is optimistic Thanks

Is there any reason you can't use yourself as an example? Aren't you optimistic?

CJ

I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else.— Winston Churchill

I'm an optimist in the sense that I believe humans are noble and honorable, and some of them are really smart. I have a very optimistic view of individuals.— Steve Jobs

An optimist is a person who starts a new diet on Thanksgiving Day. — Irv Kupcinet

well, the point is that I am trying to understand the word better.

thienfoverlwell, the point is that I am trying to understand the word better.

Look it up in one of the many on-line dictionaries that are available.

Then try something like fraze.it to see how it's used in sentences.

CJ

Out of curiosity I just tried fraze.it. It seems to draw its phrases, presumably for accuracy, from sources using a high level of English, but the upshot of that is that the sentences are probably harder for learners to construe the meaning of. I wonder if it might perhaps be better to think of an easily-understood (and long) book on the web that can be downloaded and searched for words.
d

Actually I just tried looking up examples of optimism - using Google Search, Little Dorrit, Google Books and various other methods - and I didn't really find any suitable results, so I can understand the wish for an example!
d

meteorquake I wonder if it might perhaps be better to think of an easily-understood (and long) book on the web that can be downloaded and searched for words

I think that's the main rationale behind corpuses like COCA ( http://corpus.byu.edu/coca/ ) and BNC (