Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Having, showing, or caused by emotion, especially tender or affectionate feeling.
- adjective Having, showing, or caused by strong or extravagant tenderness or sadness, often in an idealized way.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Of or pertaining to sentimentalism.
- Swayed, or apt to be swayed, by sentiment; of a tender and susceptible heart; mawkishly tender or susceptible: as, a sentimental person.
- Containing or characterized by sentiment; appealing to the feelings rather than to reason: as, a sentimental song; sentimental works.
- Synonyms Romantic, Sentimental (see
romantic ), hysterical, gushing, etc. (in style).
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective obsolescent Having, expressing, or containing a sentiment or sentiments; abounding with moral reflections; containing a moral reflection; didactic.
- adjective Inclined to sentiment; having an excess of sentiment or sensibility; indulging the sensibilities for their own sake; artificially or affectedly tender; -- often in a reproachful sense.
- adjective Addressed or pleasing to the emotions only, usually to the weaker and the unregulated emotions.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective characterized by
sentiment ,sentimentality orexcess emotion - adjective derived from
emotion rather thanreason - adjective
romantic
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective given to or marked by sentiment or sentimentality
- adjective effusively or insincerely emotional
Etymologies
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Examples
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Whereas the term "sentimental" can be used more often than not to hint at an indulgence in the emotionality it can imply, when speaking of a movie it might refer to the film being used to pull on the heartstrings and provoke the tear ducts of the audience in a contrived and calculated manner.
Carol Smaldino: A Surprise of Sentiment and 50-50 Carol Smaldino 2011
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Whereas the term "sentimental" can be used more often than not to hint at an indulgence in the emotionality it can imply, when speaking of a movie it might refer to the film being used to pull on the heartstrings and provoke the tear ducts of the audience in a contrived and calculated manner.
Carol Smaldino: A Surprise of Sentiment and 50-50 Carol Smaldino 2011
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Whereas the term "sentimental" can be used more often than not to hint at an indulgence in the emotionality it can imply, when speaking of a movie it might refer to the film being used to pull on the heartstrings and provoke the tear ducts of the audience in a contrived and calculated manner.
Carol Smaldino: A Surprise of Sentiment and 50-50 Carol Smaldino 2011
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I went back to the Philippines with MacArthur on his final journey there in 1961, what he called his sentimental journey.
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He would have liked to have left them behind altogether, and even tried to laugh Beth out of what he called her sentimental attachment to odds and ends; but as most of the things had belonged to Aunt Victoria, she took his ridicule so ill that he wisely let the subject drop.
The Beth Book Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius Sarah Grand
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General Botha and General Smuts were ready to concede almost every material point, provided what they called the sentimental objection against race distinction was waived by the Indian community.
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“But isn't that what you call sentimental?” said Vincent.
Father Payne Benson, Arthur C. 1915
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You say 'the sentimental is always a got-up thing,' a 'do at the bottom of it.'
Selections from the Letters of Geraldine Endsor Jewsbury to Jane Welsh Carlyle 1892
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We have already established in these (blog) pages that I don't think "sentimental" is a dirty word -- as long as the emotion is honestly earned, that I adore a good cry -- as long as I don't feel jerked around, and that I consider "old fashioned" a term of art, not an insult.
Fanny deliasherman 2010
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We have already established in these (blog) pages that I don't think "sentimental" is a dirty word -- as long as the emotion is honestly earned, that I adore a good cry -- as long as I don't feel jerked around, and that I consider "old fashioned" a term of art, not an insult.
Fanny deliasherman 2010
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