underhope
nounEtymology Perhaps from Middle English underhopen (“to consider as secondary, discount”), equivalent to under- + hope.
1
A lowered expectation or hope.
- Of baffled struggling crowds and broken cries And the great stedfast underhope that never dies.1896, Prosser Hall Frye, The Substance of His House, page 44:
- Yesterday they went with underhopes of home And mostly glad to go - how impotent to save […]1973, James Gibson, Let the Poet Choose, page 55:
1 more example
- He also has a greater hope, what he might have called a tremulous underhope: that the neighbours who say that 'he hears it not now' might be mistaken.2005, The Thomas Hardy Journal, volumes 21-22, page 183:
- Related terms
- overhope