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SENTIMENTAL
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Effusively or insincerely emotional
Example:
slushy poetry
Synonyms:
bathetic; drippy; hokey; kitschy; maudlin; mawkish; mushy; sappy; schmaltzy; schmalzy; sentimental; slushy; soppy; soupy
Classified under:
Similar:
emotional (of more than usual emotion)
Derivation:
sentiment (tender, romantic, or nostalgic feeling or emotion)
sentimentality (falsely emotional in a maudlin way)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Given to or marked by sentiment or sentimentality
Classified under:
Similar:
tender (given to sympathy or gentleness or sentimentality)
Derivation:
sentiment (tender, romantic, or nostalgic feeling or emotion)
sentimentality (extravagant or affected feeling or emotion)
Context examples:
He was starving for sympathy, which, with him, meant intelligent understanding; and he had yet to learn that Ruth's sympathy was largely sentimental and tactful, and that it proceeded from gentleness of nature rather than from understanding of the objects of her sympathy.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
He got cheerfully sentimental about the town, and proposed success to it; observing that Mrs. Micawber and himself had been made extremely snug and comfortable there and that he never should forget the agreeable hours they had passed in Canterbury.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
In the course of the afternoon and evening these hints were enlarged on: various soft conversations were reported, and sentimental scenes represented; and, in short, a volume of a novel of fashionable life was that day improvised by her for my benefit.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
All this surprised and flattered her, though she did not understand it till Miss Belle looked up from her writing, and said, with a sentimental air...
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
If I had, I could have wept sentimental tears to-night, and the clownish antics of that precious pair would have but enhanced the beauty of their voices and the beauty of the accompanying orchestra.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
He was standing with his arms folded, over against the wall, looking at the spikes on the top, with a sentimental expression, as if they were the interlacing boughs of trees that had shaded him in his youth.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
Ned, getting sentimental, warbled a serenade with the pensive refrain...
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
Personally, he was an intellectual moralist, and more offending to him than platitudinous pomposity was the morality of those about him, which was a curious hotchpotch of the economic, the metaphysical, the sentimental, and the imitative.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
Next morning Fred showed me one of the crumpled flowers in his vest pocket, and looked very sentimental.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
"Isn't 'thou' a little sentimental?" asked Jo, privately thinking it a lovely monosyllable.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
