# Micawber

> English word · Noun · IPA /mɪˈkɒbər/

## Definitions
1. 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.

## Etymology
A name likely coined by Charles Dickens, 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.

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/word/micawber