underhope

English

Etymology

Perhaps from Middle English underhopen (“to consider as secondary, discount”), equivalent to under- +‎ hope.

Noun

underhope (countable and uncountable, plural underhopes)

  1. A lowered expectation or hope.
    • 1896, Prosser Hall Frye, The Substance of His House, page 44:
      Of baffled struggling crowds and broken cries
      And the great stedfast underhope that never dies.
    • 1973, James Gibson, Let the Poet Choose, page 55:
      Yesterday they went with underhopes of home
      And mostly glad to go - how impotent to save […]
    • 2005, The Thomas Hardy Journal, volumes 21-22, page 183:
      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.

See also

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