Hope crossword clue

The most likely answers for the crossword clue “Hope” are TRUST or RIVAL, with 5 letters. Below are 12 answers from 5 to 11 letters, best match first in each length, then what each top answer means and how to tell them apart.

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The best answers, explained

TRUST 5 letters · verb

expect and wish “I trust you will behave better from now on”

DESIRE 6 letters · verb

expect and wish

PROMISE 7 letters · noun

grounds for feeling hopeful about the future “there is little or no promise that he will recover”

GOODWILL 8 letters · noun

the friendly hope that something will succeed

ENCOURAGE 9 letters · verb

inspire with confidence; give hope or courage to

COMPETITOR 10 letters · noun

the contestant you hope to defeat

COMPETITION 11 letters · noun

the contestant you hope to defeat “he wanted to know what the competition was doing”

Telling them apart

With 7 squares, PROMISE, RAINBOW and DESPAIR all fit. The first letter tells them all apart: P → PROMISE · R → RAINBOW · D → DESPAIR. Fill in that crossing answer first.

Other forms of this clue

Clues often use another form of the word, and the answer then takes the same form: “hoped” wants an answer that ends the same way.

What “hope” means

• noun: a specific instance of feeling hopeful (“it revived their hope of winning the pennant”)
• noun: the general feeling that some desire will be fulfilled (“in spite of his troubles he never gave up hope”)
• noun: grounds for feeling hopeful about the future
• noun: someone (or something) on which expectations are centered (“he was their best hope for a victory”)

A clue usually points at one of these senses, so the right answer is the one that matches the sense the puzzle means: check it against the crossing words.

About these answers

We match the clue against our own thesaurus and dictionary (Open English WordNet): words that mean the same as HOPE, and words whose definition is HOPE. We don't copy answers from newspaper puzzles, so a clue that leans on trivia or wordplay may need the crossing letters instead.