beamish

[ bee-mish ]

adjective

1. bright, cheerful, and optimistic.

Word History and Origins

Origin of beamish¹

First recorded in 1520–30; beam (in the sense “ray of light”) + -ish ¹

Example Sentences

At least the songs are sung well: Jones is as beamish as his music sounds; you can see and hear how his Ivan might be the star the show says he is.

From New York Times

That’s my feeling about this show’s beamish collegiality, and it might have been the same, only less painfully, were Hillary Clinton in the White House.

From The New Yorker

How gallantly the "beamish boy" must have dealt the death-stroke to the queer brute as the orchestra sounded the Siegfried and the Dragon motives, and the air all the while redolent with heliotrope.

From Project Gutenberg

Top Step is sorry for him—a creature of another, paler world ... infinitely beneath her bright and beamish boy's.

From Project Gutenberg

But just as she whirled past, Mary saw them, and leaned back to wave her hand and smile her “beamish” smile at the unwitting discoverers of her secret.

From Project Gutenberg