0

Somsak：May I bring you a salad?
Susan：Oh yes. What do you recommend today?
Somsak：I recommend rose-petal salad. Special for new friends.
Susan：[to Harry] Rose-petal salad?
Harry：Why not?
Somsak：I'll take care of everything. [He leaves.]
Susan：I hope you're hungry.
Harry：What? Oh, yes. Starving.

I find this explanation in a dictionary:

  1. (tr; takes a clause as object) to trust, expect, or believe: we hope that this is satisfactory.

Dose hope in my example sentence mean to believe? If that is the case, instead of using believe or think, why would one use hope here? Is there any difference in nuance between them?

Improve this question

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
1

The way it is used here. It means wish or desire. The person has made food and hope that the person is hungry or all the food will go to waste.

Using trust, expect, think, or believe here means that the person assumes that Harry is hungry. This is probably partially true, but the passage you gave makes no indication of that.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .