Micawberly
adv ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 in an upbeat and optimistic way, in the face of seemingly hopeless circumstances
"[…] not growing a single spiritual inch, for putting forth his powers as a man should; just amiably Micawbering along, and most Micawberly devoted to somebody he would like well enough to marry when the times comes and things "turn up;" […]"
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"[…] not growing a single spiritual inch, for putting forth his powers as a man should; just amiably Micawbering along, and most Micawberly devoted to somebody he would like well enough to marry when the times comes and things "turn up;" […]"
Etymology
From Micawber + -ly (suffix forming adjectives from nouns, having the sense of ‘behaving like, or having a nature typical of [what is denoted by the noun]’) (see origin of name there), from the character Wilkins Micawber – noted for his naive optimism, always confident that “something will turn up” – in David Copperfield (1849–1850) by the English author Charles Dickens (1812–1870).
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.