mushy
Americanadjective
-
mushier,
comparative
-
mushiest
superlative
-
resembling mush; pulpy.
-
Informal. overly emotional or sentimental.
mushy love letters.
adjective
-
soft and pulpy
-
informal excessively sentimental or emotional
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of mushy
Explanation
You might use the adjective mushy to describe an overripe banana or a tear-jerker of a commercial. Either way, it describes something soft. Mushy is a good word for talking about something that's doughy or pulpy, whether it's a hunk of modeling clay or your out-of-shape belly. Another way to use mushy is to mean sticky and sentimental, like a mushy love scene in a terrible movie or a mushy greeting card. Either way, the word comes from mush, or porridge, which originated from mash, or "soft mixture."
Vocabulary lists containing mushy
Sickly Sweet Treats: Sappy and Insincere Valentine Words
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The Catcher in the Rye
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Words to Know Before You Defrost the Bird
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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.
See Examples For:
Cook them for longer than three minutes and they become mushy and clumpy.
From Salon ● Jul. 19, 2026
The classic recipe for fish and chips -- white fish deep-fried in batter, chips, and mushy peas, often with tartare sauce on the side -- dates back to the 1860s.
From Barron's ● Apr. 5, 2026
Fans could buy stuffed toy versions of items like fish, chips and mushy peas at a temporary shop at the department store Selfridges in London.
From BBC ● Jan. 3, 2026
Take care when combining the rice, lentils and pasta: The mix should be loose and textured, not mushy.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 28, 2025
Bat didn’t like mushy foods, except for oatmeal with brown sugar.
From "A Boy Called Bat" by Elana K. Arnold
The dope is dopey, and it’s unfortunately only a foray into mushier territory.
From Salon ● Aug. 12, 2026
We can understand things about cultural context and these broader, mushier sort of social debates that the A.I. is just nowhere close to understanding.
From Slate ● Sep. 12, 2022
The face buttons are also quite small but tactile and clicky, while the D-pad is accurate enough despite being a little mushier than I’d prefer.
From The Verge ● Jan. 21, 2022
But support was mushier across party lines, according to the poll.
From New York Times ● Oct. 18, 2019
They had spoiled a bit, seemed softer and mushier, but still had a rich sweetness.
From "Hatchet" by Gary Paulsen
They seem as withdrawn as Simon, not wanting to call attention to themselves with anything but the mushiest phrases and most reticent rhymes — a timidity that lets the ear write them off as unimportant.
From New York Times ● Mar. 1, 2019
If you’re tuned in to Stevie’s sonic language, his mushiest moments harbor myriad possibilities.
From Slate ● Dec. 18, 2016
And at Sunday night’s 57th Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, the proceedings didn’t feel like a singalong trophy contest so much as a race to pop music’s mushiest, most self-important middle.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 8, 2015
Last week one of the chilliest, dreariest; mushiest winters in years was refusing to let go.
From Time Magazine Archive
She had her chin tucked down, and her head canted to one side, and her mouth puckered into the mushiest kind of a grin you ever saw.
From Shorty McCabe by F. Vaux (Francis Vaux) Wilson
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
