From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
1. Full of hope, or agreeable expectation; inclined to hope; expectant.
Men of their own natural inclination hopeful and strongly conceited. --Hooker.
2. Having qualities which excite hope; affording promise of good or of success; as, a hopeful youth; a hopeful prospect. ''Hopeful scholars.'' --Addison. -- {Hope"ful*ly}, adverb -- {Hope"ful*ness}, noun
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Hopefully \Hope"ful*ly\, adverb
2. I hope; if all goes well; as, hopefully, the dress will be ready before the party.
Note: Some prescriptivists object to this usage as being ungrammatical, but it is very common and well understood. It is usually used to begin a sentence describing a desired future event. [PJC]
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
adverb
1: with hope; in a hopeful manner; "we searched hopefully for a good position" [ant: {hopelessly}]
2: it is hoped; "hopefully the weather will be fine on Sunday"
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
45 Moby Thesaurus words for "hopefully": after a time, after a while, afterward, afterwards, airily, anon, anticipatingly, anticipatively, anticipatorily, before long, blithely, by and by, by destiny, cheerfully, cheerily, confidently, expectantly, expectedly, expectingly, fatally, fondly, genially, gladly, happily, hopingly, imminently, in aftertime, in the future, irrepressibly, jauntily, joyfully, later, lightly, optimistically, pleasantly, predictably, probably, proximo, sanguinely, smilingly, soon, tomorrow, with bated breath, with breathless expectation, with good cheer
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