bullish
8 synonyms and 3 antonyms for bullish, grouped by meaning and by how common each one is.
Adjective — Expecting the price of shares, a currency or another asset to rise, or reflecting that expectation.
Synonyms
Everyday swaps
Common words most readers know — safe in any writing.
Less common
Still standard English, but they carry more weight.
Rare, literary or technical
Precise, but they will stand out — check the sense before using one.
Synonyms by Meaning
1. adjective finance
Expecting the price of shares, a currency or another asset to rise, or reflecting that expectation.
“Analysts turned bullish on the airline after a record summer of bookings.”
Opposites
2. adjective
Confident and positive about how something will turn out.
“She is bullish about the team's chances of promotion.”
Opposites
How to Use Bullish
The word patterns that sound natural to a native speaker.
Standard in business and financial writing, and common in ordinary speech for general optimism.
Etymology
From bull in the stock-market sense of a buyer who expects prices to rise, plus the adjective ending -ish; the market sense of bull is of uncertain origin.
Full origin of bullish →Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between bullish and bearish?
Bullish means you expect prices to rise, so you want to buy and hold. Bearish is the exact opposite: you expect prices to fall. The images come from how each animal attacks, a bull tossing its horns upward and a bear swiping downward.
Can bullish be used outside of finance?
Yes. It is now common in everyday speech to mean simply confident or optimistic, as in being bullish about a project's chances. The financial sense remains the more literal one.
Is being bullish the same as being aggressive?
No. Bullish describes an expectation that things will improve, not a manner of behaving. A bullish investor may still act cautiously.