micawber

noun

1. 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.

   “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.”

2. (alt-of)Alternative letter-case form of Micawber; a person of modest income or background who remains optimistic that their situation will improve.

   “My grandfather was something of a micawber, never letting setbacks or misfortune drag down his cheery disposition.”

verb

1. To be optimistic that "something will turn up", in the style of Wilkins Micawber.

   “To hope that the Administration and Congress will become Anti-National Bank, and thereby expect something, is Micawbering in dread earnest.”

   “... 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;" ....”

   “He found his native land overcrowded with young men of education and refinement, in the same predicament as himself—waiting for something to turn up; and while he was thus “Micawbering,” he met Miss Mary Anderson at the Farm street church, and from her obtained an engagement to take a singing part in “Ingomar.””

   “No Indian, unless he has micawbered himself into self-complacency, would think 1973 a happy year, let alone a year of achievement.”