micawber
/mɪˈkɒbər/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.78 in modern English
17
Scrabble Score
8
Letters
3
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A person who is poor but eternally optimistic, believing that "something will turn up", like the fictional character Wilkins Micawber in the 1850 Charles Dickens novel David Copperfield.
verb
To be optimistic that "something will turn up", in the style of Wilkins Micawber.
noun
Alternative letter-case form of Micawber; a person of modest income or background who remains optimistic that their situation will improve.
Example Sentences
- "As it is I see Destitution and Despair ahead of me, and have begun an epitaph in the Micawber style for my future grave in the precincts of my native County's jail."
- "... a state of feeling which I may perhaps best describe as the Micawber condition. If only gold would turn up! Gold might turn up any day! But as gold did not turn up, — then would not Providence be so good as to allow something else to turn up!"
- "Micawbers far from home, they waited for something to turn up."
- "Austria was the Micawber of Europe. After all something might turn up."
- "We are constantly being assured, not by one Mr. Micawber, but by three or four Mr. Micawbers, that something is on the point of "turning up." Yet nothing ever does turn up."
- "His reason was no longer concern that the news might destroy her accord with what she was concentrating on, since that was no longer valid now, if it had ever been, and it was no longer the possibility that he might find something else before she would need to know, for that was not valid either now, since he had tried that and failed, nor was it the Micawber-like faith of the inert in tomorrow; it was partly perhaps the knowledge that late enough would be soon enough, but mostly (he did not try to fool himself) it was a profound faith in her."
Etymology
A name likely coined by Charles Dickens, evidently reminiscent of common Irish, Scots, and Scottish Gaelic surnames starting with Mc-, Mac-, both from Old Irish macc (“son, child”) (see more there). For the second particle, compare names like Aubrey; similar surnames like M(a)cAubrey are attested around Dickens' time and thus Micawber may represent a dialectal variation.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /mɪˈkɒbər/