I. |sentə|ment ə l adjective
1.
a. : of, relating to, or characterized by sentiment
a scientific as opposed to a sentimental appraisal of the situation — Times Literary Supplement
especially : marked or governed by feeling, sensibility, or emotional idealism
his sincerely sentimental love for children — Sir Winston Churchill
was profoundly sentimental ; his warm, expansive heart yearned for sympathy — G.S.Haight
in his earlier days was a sentimental liberal — J.T.Farrell
b. : expressive of sentiment or feelings : addressed or appealing to the emotions : stimulating an emotional response
the sentimental or sensuous appeal of an art — André Malraux
was a sentimental comedy of love in the modern equivalent of a cottage — Current Biography
c. : resulting from or motivated chiefly by feeling rather than reason or thought
many of our old notions … are more sentimental than accurate — W.H.Whyte
working-class unity, both for sentimental and realistic reasons, has remained an obsession — J.G.Colton
2.
a. : having an excess of sentiment or sensibility : indulging in feeling to an unwarranted extent : affectedly or mawkishly emotional
are incurably sentimental , and take immoderate pleasure in the contemplation of domestic bliss — Eric Linklater
pity without values is as sentimental as if applied to insects — Accent
an age in which the most natural feeling of tenderness, happiness, or sorrow was likely to be called sentimental — Randall Jarrell
b. : expressing or stimulating an excessive, affected, or unwarranted emotional indulgence
much that is hackneyed, shoddy, and falsely sentimental is foisted upon the public under the guise of the Biblical novel — Edmund Fuller
rant and bombast and sentimental cant of politics — Florence Converse
works of art which have sentimental subjects (partings, deaths, waiting for a lover's return, children … praying or crying over a hurt pet) — Hunter Mead
Synonyms:
sentimental , romantic , mawkish , maudlin , soppy , mushy , and slushy can mean unduly or affectedly emotional. sentimental can apply to anyone strongly and especially unduly, habitually, or promiscuously affected by the softer, pleasanter, more feminine emotions, or it can apply to anything marked by such an affection, but usually it suggests a lack of complete genuineness or naturalness, implying that the emotion arises from a factitious situation or out of hyperesthesia, or is purposely evoked for the thrill, as an affectation, or for a given even though often obscure purpose
a sentimental mother cherishing every memento of the babyhood of her children
whisky made him somewhat sentimental — Sherwood Anderson
sentimental popular songs
the advertising agent … must wax as sentimental over one man's soap as over another's laxative — Roger Burlingame
theological discussion of any kind, as distinct from a loosely sentimental religiosity — C.A.Lejeune
sentimental and cheap novels — J.T.Farrell
compassionate without being sentimental — Gertrude Buckman
romantic implies emotion that derives from things not so much as they actually or generally are but as they may be or are imaginatively or ideally conceived, as in literature, drama, or one's waking dreams
a romantic story of love and adventure in the South Seas
I am filled with a sense of the French romantic spirit. It soars, it expands, it engulfs you with a sweet kind of poetry that is charming, but very unreal — Irving Kolodin
his idealism — reflected in his romantic love of country, hatred of materialism, and concept of the general interest — A.S.Link
a romantic young lady waiting for her Prince Charming to come along
mawkish suggests a sickening sentimentality marked by gross insincerity or objectionable emotional excess
stories simpering with delight and mawkish with pathos — J.D.Hart
his mixture of harshness and mawkish sentimentality — Peter Quennell
murder was punished without mawkish concern or delay — C.M.Webster
maudlin suggests an excess of emotion or feeling marked by an unwarranted weeping or an inappropriately gushing expression of love, or the like
silly maudlin ballads of the suicide of young lovers
the death of a famous actress is the signal, as a rule, for a great deal of maudlin excitement — Ben Hecht
soppy , mushy , and slushy are all informal equivalents of mawkish , soppy , chiefly British, often carrying the suggestion of silliness
a novel … soppy with manufactured emotionalism — John Cournos
a naturally sad but never soppy poet — G.S.Fraser
mushy suggesting a driveling sentimentality
the language is mushy with sentiment and turgid with rhetoric — C.J.Rolo
he croons with mushy sentimentality over his heroes — Anthony West
writing mushy letters to women admirers — Stanley Walker
and slushy applying chiefly to utterances and like mushy , suggesting a sentimental or emotional drivel especially about love
slushy letters from an adolescent admirer
slushy and woebegone songs
II. noun
( -s )
: a sentimental person