cheerful
adjUK /ˈt͡ʃɪəfl̩/ · US /ˈt͡ʃɪɹfl̩/
Etymology From Middle English chereful, cherful, equivalent to cheer + -ful.
1
Noticeably happy and optimistic.
- Ever in cheerfullest mood art thou, when others are filled with Gloomy forebodings of illl, and see only ruin before them.1847 November 1, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, chapter II, in Evangeline, a Tale of Acadie, Boston, Mass.: William D. Ticknor & Company, →OCLC, part I, page 32:
- He moped, she felt, as the time went by, and he was cheerfuler only when some letter, full of hope without expectation, came from Dick.1913, W[illiam] D[ean] Howells, chapter XXIII, in New Leaf Mills: A Chronicle, New York, N.Y.; London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, →OCLC, page 150:
1 more example
- The Eskimo is a nobler, cheerfuller and easy-goinger person than we smug civilized citizens have always imagined. Rockwell Kent, the noted Eskimophile, claims they are a polite and happy race.1935 July 2, W. E. Farbstein, “Marginal Notes”, in Washington Herald, volume XIII, number 219, Washington, D.C.: American Newspapers, Inc., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 15, column 7:
2
Bright and pleasant.
- They enjoyed a cheerful room.
- At half-past nine on this Saturday evening, the parlour of the Salutation Inn, High Holborn, contained most of its customary visitors.[…]In former days every tavern of repute kept such a room for its own select circle, a club, or society, of habitués, who met every evening, for a pipe and a cheerful glass.1892, Walter Besant, chapter III, in The Ivory Gate […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC:
- Derived terms
- cheap and cheerful, cheerfulize, cheerfully, cheerfulness, cheerfulsome, overcheerful, uncheerful