Micawber

Meanings

Noun

• 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.

Verb

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

Origin

• A name likely , evidently reminiscent of common Irish, Scots, and Scottish Gaelic surnames starting with Mc-, Mac-, both from Old Irish macc ("son, child") (see more there). For the second particle, compare names like Aubrey; similar surnames like M(a)cAubrey are attested around Dickens' time and thus Micawber may represent a dialectal variation.