in a way that shows hope or confidence about the future
She waited hopefully outside the classroom for her exam results.
The children looked hopefully at their father as he opened the ice-cream freezer.
✦ Formed from the adjective hopeful + adverbial suffix -ly; first recorded in the 17th century.
used at the beginning of a statement to express what you hope will happen
Hopefully, the rain will stop before the picnic starts.
Hopefully, we can finish our project by Friday.
✦ Emerging as a sentence adverb in American English in the early 20th century, influenced by similar adverbs like "luckily".
