Other forms: hoped, hopes, hoping
Hope is the feeling that something good is still possible. It is what you hold while the votes are being counted, while the surgeon is still in theatre, while you refresh the inbox to see whether the job email came.
It is also a very ordinary verb: I hope you're well, hope it goes okay, hoping for rain by Thursday. You hope THAT something happens, hope FOR a thing, or hope TO do something — and note the grammar learners get wrong: I hope it doesn't rain tomorrow, not "will not rain". In the plural, hopes are the particular things you are counting on: her hopes were high, they raised his hopes, hopes were dashed. A person can be a hope, too — she is the team's best hope. Hopeful is the adjective, and hopeless has wandered off on its own: a hopeless cook is not sad, just very bad at cooking.
1nounhopeThe feeling that a good outcome is still possible.
“There was no news, but there was still hope.”
2verbverbTo want something to happen and believe that it might.
“We hope to be finished by Friday.”
3nounparticularA particular thing you want and are counting on, nearly always in the plural.
“All their hopes rested on the second harvest.”
4nounbringA person or thing likely to bring the success you want.
“She is the club's best hope for a medal this year.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
Hope is old and unexplained. Old English hopian meant what it means today, and behind it stands Proto-West Germanic hopōn — and there the trail stops, with no confident ancestor beyond. Its relatives are scattered across northern Europe: Dutch hopen, West Frisian hoopje, Swedish hoppas. A word this common with no known parent is unusual, and it rather suits this one.
Middle English
hopen
English, today
hope
From Middle English hopen. From Middle English hopen, from Old English hopian (“hope”), from Proto-West Germanic hopōn; further etymology unclear. 2
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA