- sentimental
- sentimental, romantic, mawkish, maudlin, soppy, mushy, slushy are comparable when they mean unduly or affectedly emotional.Sentimental usually suggests emotion that does not arise from genuine or natural feeling but is evoked by an external cause, by a particular mood, by an excess of sensibility, or for the sake of the thrill, or is merely an affectation that is temperamental, the moment's fashion, or designed to achieve an end{
sentimental songs
}{his sense of character is nil, and he is as pretentious as a rich whore, as sentimental as a lollipop— Mailer
}{a sentimental person, interested in pathetic novels and all unhappy attachments— Thackeray
}{we are all for tootling on the sentimental flute in literature— Stevenson
}{he had an alert and a sentimental mind and worried about the health of Mr. Hiram's cart horse and . . . the inmates of the Sailor's Home— Cheever
}Romantic implies emotion that has little relation to things as they actually are, but is derived more from one's imagination of what they should be ideally or from one's conceptions of them as formed by literature, art, or daydreams{the process of growing from romantic boyhood into cynical maturity— Shaw
}{its premise is romantic, if only because it assumes that every sparrow ... is a warbler, if not a nightingale— J. M. Brown
}{it has become the fashion to smile a little at romantic hopes for the world .... But it could be that it is precisely such dreams and visions that are needed— Edman
}Mawkish, when it implies sentimentality, suggests a kind that creates loathing or disgust because of its insincerity, emotional excess, or other signs of weakness or futility{stale epithets, which, when I only seem to smell their mawkish proximity, produce in me a slight feeling of nausea— L. P. Smith
}{stories simpering with delight and mawkish with pathos— J. D. Hart
}Maudlin stresses a lack of balance or self-restraint that shows itself in emotional excess (as unrestrained tears and laments); usually also it suggests extreme or contemptible silliness{the mob became not only en-thusiastic but maudlin— Disraeli
}{saying things that were inept, maudlin, unhinged, and knowing then that these very words must drive him on and on toward . . . more helpless depths of drunkenness— Styron
}Soppy, mushy, and slushy come close to mawkish in their suggestion of distasteful and disgusting sentimentality.Soppy (chiefly in British use) often carries a strong suggestion of silliness in showing affection{they do not permit themselves to show much family affection, so who are we to object if they go soppy over a few four-footed friends?— Hahn
}{a naturally sad but never soppy poet— Fraser
}Mushy may suggest softness or wishy-washiness{Stuffy rolled over on her back and paddled the air hysterically, a hypocrite, trading shamelessly on her sex and the mushy hearts of humans— Panter-Downes
}{you may ... be a sharp, cynical sort of person; or you may be a nice, mushy, amiable, good-natured one— Shaw
}Slushy applies chiefly to utterances or personalities that are so sentimental or emotionally confused as to seem senseless{slushy stories
}{pander to everything that's shoddy and slushy and third-rate in human nature— Buchan
}
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
