Meaning

(transitive) To take a pessimistic view of; to speak of in a negative or pessimistic way..

Definitions by Sense

1. (transitive) To take a pessimistic view of; to speak of in a negative or pessimistic way.
2. (transitive) To make (something) pessimal or the worst; (in a weaker sense) to make (something, such as a computer program) less efficient.
3. (intransitive) To think like a pessimist; to believe the worst.
4. (intransitive) To become pessimal or the worst.

Example Sentences

Mr. [Benjamin] Disraeli's Church appointments have been received with general satisfaction. There are two relations of the matter; the one as regards the prudence and astuteness of the dispenser of good things, and the other as relates to the general good and efficiency of the Church itself. It is equally possible to optimize and pessimize either aspect.

pessimizing compiler [...] A compiler that produces object [...] code that is worse than the straightforward or obvious hand translation. The implication is that the compiler is actually trying to optimize the program, but through excessive cleverness is doing the opposite. A few pessimizing compilers have been written on purpose, however, as pranks or burlesques.

Designing a window without the building, a light without the room, or a motor without the machine it drives works as badly as designing a pelican without the fish. Optimizing components in isolation tends to pessimize the whole system – and hence the bottom line.

Thus optimizing the pipe as a component, and for just one benefit (saved pumping energy), "pessimizes" the system! Optimizing the whole system together, and for two benefits (saving energy and capital), yields fat pipes, tiny pumping equipment, slightly lower total capital cost, and 12 times less pumping energy.

The development conundrum is that even as the systems of production and consumption meet human needs and aspirations, they may pessimize the ecosystem on which all life depends. Ecosystem services are the benefits that humans derive from the way that natural systems function. Our skill at exploiting these functions has elevated human survival but pessimized the system.

The pessimising and desponding tone of the Tory Foreign Minister's correspondence, in the early part of 1859, can hardly be read without a shudder.

Glancing at the developments of individualities in memberdom, it may be said that Lord Elebo availed himself of the last appearance in the House of the Army Estimates to repeat the attacks on the physical condition of the men of the service which he had so elaborately made a week or two ago; and he pessimised on the subject, if possible, with the same exaggeration as before.

Certainly it was not in the interest of the Government to come forward and propose any additional taxation if they could, with consistency and with satisfaction to heir own consciences, have avoided it, and he did not think his two previous Budgets showed that it was in his nature to pessimise or to take desponding views.

Word Forms

• pessimizes
• pessimizing
• pessimized
• pessimise

Antonyms for pessimize

Related Words

When Should You Use Pessimize?

Use pessimize when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.

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