How to Use hopeful in a Sentence

hopeful

1 of 2 adjective
  • The mood is sad rather than hopeful.
  • The movie has a hopeful ending.
  • She is hopeful of winning the race.
  • I still feel hopeful about the future.
  • There are hopeful signs that the crisis may end soon.
  • He was hopeful that things would get better soon.
  • Investigators report that there have been some hopeful developments in the case.
  • There is a lot to be hopeful about.
    — Alexis Kayser, MSNBC Newsweek, 15 Sep. 2025
  • So far, there are some hopeful signs.
    — John Metcalfe, Mercury News, 17 Apr. 2026
  • Doesn't seem very hopeful, though, right now.
    — ABC News, 19 Apr. 2026
  • So don’t be sad about the trilling; be hopeful for love.
    — Joan Morris, Mercury News, 23 Feb. 2026
  • So, what makes Steinem hopeful these days?
    — Savannah Walsh, Vanity Fair, 25 Mar. 2026
  • At first, Heather stayed hopeful.
    — Jordan Greene, PEOPLE, 20 Oct. 2025
  • Ragans is hopeful to be back to lift the team.
    — Jaylon Thompson, Kansas City Star, 5 Sep. 2025
  • Like, there’s a ton of things in my life that keep me alive and hopeful, right?
    — Ethan Shanfeld, Variety, 3 Oct. 2025
  • Most felt safe there and were hopeful for the future.
    — Deputy Managing Editor, Los Angeles Times, 28 Apr. 2026
  • There was good reason to be hopeful.
    — CNN Money, 7 Oct. 2025
  • Still, there are reasons to be hopeful.
    — Hansel Alejandro Aguilar, Mercury News, 6 Sep. 2025
  • Look, there’s something deeply earnest and hopeful about the show.
    — David Amsden, Rolling Stone, 7 Oct. 2025
  • Friend Maria Recht is hopeful, too.
    — Veronica Fulton, NBC news, 1 Nov. 2025
  • By late spring, tests revealed hopeful news.
    — Dawn Klavon, PEOPLE, 1 Oct. 2025
  • But Tehran has reasons to be hopeful.
    — Vivian Salama, The Atlantic, 15 June 2026
  • What surprises me now is how hopeful the movie feels.
    — Los Angeles Times, 11 June 2026
  • Though their hero is in prison, the Brazilians were hopeful.
    — Max Saltman, CNN Money, 1 Apr. 2026
  • The hopeful student didn’t win.
    — Zoey Lyttle, PEOPLE, 19 Sep. 2025
  • Democrats are hopeful that history may be on their side.
    — Margaret Barthel, NPR, 16 Oct. 2025
  • This hopeful place where an unknown guy with an unknown name took flight.
    — Sara Tenenbaum, CBS News, 18 June 2026
  • Those who took that as a hopeful sign now say their hopes are deflated.
    — Los Angeles Times, 22 Apr. 2026
  • Snead sounded even more hopeful.
    — Steve Henson, Los Angeles Times, 4 June 2026
  • Gulutzan is just hopeful that his team can learn from its mistakes.
    — Lia Assimakopoulos, Dallas Morning News, 5 Feb. 2026

hopeful

2 of 2 noun
  • Some cabbie hopefuls try dozens of times over years to pass the test.
    — Anderson Cooper, CBS News, 17 May 2026
  • This is not to say that awards hopefuls still don’t put in the effort.
    — Marcus Jones, IndieWire, 12 Feb. 2026
  • That’s less than 4% of hopefuls who were chosen for the show.
    — Evan Moore, Charlotte Observer, 26 Dec. 2025
  • This year, the field of hopefuls was bigger than ever.
    — Ryan Brennan, Kansas City Star, 20 Mar. 2026
  • Both hopefuls are cooking up as things matter most.
    — Steven Louis Goldstein, New York Times, 6 Mar. 2026
  • Top squads have been hard to beat, largely holding serve against at-large hopefuls.
    — Jim Root, New York Times, 13 Feb. 2026
  • None of this, though, has discouraged the hopefuls.
    — Becky Sullivan, NPR, 13 Aug. 2025
  • There are romantic hopefuls still out there.
    — Sean Joseph Outkick, FOXNews.com, 18 June 2026
  • Any number of East hopefuls could go after him.
    — Bennett Durando, Denver Post, 19 May 2026
  • There are also two honky-tonk hopefuls from Nashville.
    — Bethy Squires, Vulture, 23 Feb. 2026
  • Thick deposits of the isotope will be music to the ears of helium-3 hopefuls.
    — Robin George Andrews, Scientific American, 14 May 2026
  • These young hopefuls don’t need the burden of a nation’s anger and anxiety.
    — Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board, The Orlando Sentinel, 11 Feb. 2026
  • Last, but not least, hopefuls need to share a couple of recent photos and a video of themselves.
    — Emy Lacroix, PEOPLE, 4 Nov. 2025
  • Meanwhile, best actor hopefuls made their presence felt.
    — Clayton Davis, Variety, 1 Sep. 2025
  • Some of it had to do with horrible tragedy, some because hopefuls could not see the math working out for them.
    — Deputy Managing Editor, Los Angeles Times, 31 May 2026
  • Some hopefuls delivered the lines as zingers, with a comedic precision.
    — Tatiana Siegel, Variety, 27 Oct. 2025
  • The three other championship hopefuls were ranked first, second and third.
    — Shawn McFarland, Dallas News, 11 June 2023
  • For too long, college admissions has been a high-stakes, high-stress process that many college hopefuls dread.
    — Matt Gandal, Forbes.com, 5 Aug. 2025
  • The two-time presidential hopeful died this week at age 84.
    — Charles Selle, Chicago Tribune, 18 Feb. 2026
  • The debate will provide early clues to whether the latest group of hopefuls has come up with a better way.
    — Seema Mehta, Los Angeles Times, 23 Aug. 2023
  • Only a third of hopefuls nab a permit through the rolling lottery for peak summer season.
    — Madison Chapman, Outside, 17 Sep. 2025
  • Europe As ever there are a raft of French Cannes hopefuls.
    — Melanie Goodfellow, Deadline, 17 Mar. 2026
  • Bottoms is one of four main Democratic hopefuls.
    — Aj Willingham, AJC.com, 21 Apr. 2026
  • Reid had come to Music City like so many guitar-picking hopefuls.
    — Keith Sharon, Nashville Tennessean, 21 Oct. 2025
  • According to Netflix, the hopefuls are fighting for six spots on the team.
    — Taylor Ardrey, USA Today, 15 June 2026
  • Like other Black rodeo hopefuls, he often wouldn’t be allowed to ride until events were over.
    — Marc Ramirez, USA Today, 9 Aug. 2025
  • The judges then stepped aside to select the 17 hopefuls that would move on in the competition.
    — Raechal Shewfelt, Entertainment Weekly, 10 Mar. 2026
  • The Athletic was there to speak with Olympic flag football hopefuls.
    — Eduardo Tansley, New York Times, 12 Oct. 2025
  • Typically, many hopefuls either cheered or were on dance teams in college.
    — Lisa Gutierrez may 6, Kansas City Star, 6 May 2026
  • The 2026 Artios Awards film hopefuls have been cast.
    — Erik Pedersen, Deadline, 8 Jan. 2026

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'hopeful.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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