mawkish
Americanadjective
-
characterized by sickly sentimentality; weakly emotional; maudlin.
- Synonyms:
- teary, sentimental
-
having a mildly sickening flavor; slightly nauseating.
adjective
-
falsely sentimental, esp in a weak or maudlin way
-
nauseating or insipid in flavour, smell, etc
Other Word Forms
- mawkishly adverb
- mawkishness noun
Etymology
Origin of mawkish
1660–70; obsolete mawk maggot ( late Middle English < Old Norse mathkr maggot) + -ish 1. See maggot
Explanation
Mawkish means excessively sentimental or so sappy it's sickening. Which is how you'd describe two lovebirds gushing over each other or your grandma’s cooing and cheek pinches. The adjective mawkish came into vogue in the 1600s. Oddly enough, it's rooted in the Middle English word maggot and originally meant “sickly or nauseated.” But mawkish eventually evolved to mean something so overly sentimental it makes you sick. It's not a word you hear very often these days, but feel free to use it to describe really lame love poems and annoyingly mushy Valentine's Day cards.
Vocabulary lists containing mawkish
300 Most Difficult "SAT" Words
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Sickly Sweet Treats: Sappy and Insincere Valentine Words
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For Grilled Cheese Day, Vocab with a Twist
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
In the middle of the night … I’m still haunted by this mawkish pileup of gospel signifiers.
From Los Angeles Times • Jul. 24, 2025
Morgan’s flair for the mawkish would be fine, and maybe even interesting, if he didn’t make the mistake of making the country music industry piles and piles of money.
From Salon • May 16, 2025
Meacham’s mawkish binary of history as a fight between our darker impulses and “the better angels of our nature” doesn’t accurately describe the moment we’re in.
From Slate • Mar. 3, 2023
Rather than offer insight into the difficult choices facing disabled people, “Gigi & Nate” opts for mawkish wish fulfillment, undercutting the film’s powerful emotional core.
From New York Times • Sep. 1, 2022
Her soliloquies mawkish, her sentiments maudlin, malaise dripped like a fever from her pores.
From "Interpreter of Maladies" by Jhumpa Lahiri
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
