Meaning of Micawber | Babel Free

Definitions

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

“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reason was no longer concern that the news might destroy her accord with what she was concentrating on, since that was no longer valid now, if it had ever been, and it was no longer the possibility that he might find something else before she would need to know, for that was not valid either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.”

“Only a year ago it would have needed a "super-Micawber" to be optimistic that the railways would once again pay their way. But it was no longer a pipe dream that B.R. could make a profit, the way to do it was now clear.”

“The Micawber rules of debt as ruin oppressed ministers as much as individuals.”

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

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