“Hope is the last to die” says an old Italian adage.
The etymology of the word comes from the Old English hopa "confidence in the future".
From the 13th century, the word took the connotation of expectation of something desired, and of trust and wishful desire.
Emily Dickinson has a very visual definition of it, she says: “Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops at all.” What I like about such imagery is the lack of object towards which hope is directed, it’s not about hoping for something, but about opening oneself to a hopeful disposition of the soul.
Martin Luther King Jr calls it infinite hope one must always keep, while accepting finite disappointment.

In English, hope is a somewhat abstract idea of expectation, but in Hebrew the word “tikvah” not only means expectation, but also cord or rope, from a root that means to bind, to wait for or upon.
Hope, in Christian thought is one of the theological virtues and is directed exclusively toward the future, as fervent desire and confident expectation.
Someone once asked Rumi, the beloved Sufi poet whether or not there is harm in putting one’s hopes in God and expecting a good recompense for having done good.
“Yes - was his answer- one must have hope and fear, for these two are inseparable. When a farmer plants wheat, he of course hopes that it will grow. At the same time, however, he is fearful that some disaster may befall it.”
For once, I must disagree with the great Sufi teacher, as I feel that hope doesn’t need to be a response to fear but must go hand in hand with acceptance. I hope for a certain outcome, but I am ready to accept that things might turn out otherwise, because I trust the mysterious ways in which life operates and I abandon myself to its flowing, hoping to reach safe ashore.
In the mystic branch of Islam hope for the union of the soul with the divine was expressed through images of human yearning and love.
In Psychology hope is classified as a positive anticipatory emotion.