Pollyanna

Definition

An excessively or persistently optimistic person who has a tendency to find good in everything, based on the heroine of the novel Pollyanna (1913) by Eleanor H. Porter (1869-1920). Rosalie Maggio in The Dictionary of Bias-Free Usage (1991): recommends the sex-neutral alternatives: castlebuilder; cockeyed optimist; daydreamer; eternal optimist; foolish optimist; idealist; irrepressible optimist; perennial optimist; persistent optimist; unflagging optimist; romantic; utopian; visionary; victim of eternal cheerfulness; one who lives in a fool's paradise; wearer of rose-colored glasses.

QUOTE: Vantine (Jean Harlow) introduces herself to rubber plantation workers McQuarg (Tully Marshall) and Dennis Carson (Clark Gable) in Red Dust (1932): ' I'm Pollyanna, the glad girl.'