sentimental
Americanadjective
-
expressive of or appealing to sentiment, especially the tender emotions and feelings, as love, pity, or nostalgia.
a sentimental song.
- Antonyms:
- dispassionate
-
pertaining to or dependent on sentiment.
We kept the old photograph for purely sentimental reasons.
-
weakly emotional; mawkishly susceptible or tender.
the sentimental Victorians.
-
characterized by or showing sentiment or refined feeling.
- Antonyms:
- dispassionate
adjective
-
tending to indulge the emotions excessively
-
making a direct appeal to the emotions, esp to romantic feelings
-
relating to or characterized by sentiment
Usage
What does sentimental mean? Sentimental means expressing, appealing to, or being moved by sensitive or tender emotions, such as love, nostalgia, or pity.The state or quality of being sentimental is sentimentality. Sentimental, sentimentality, and other related words (like sentimentalism, which can be used as a synonym of sentimentality) are based on the sense of the word sentiment that refers to sensitive or tender emotions, sensitivity to such emotions, or appeal to such emotions.Such terms are especially used to imply that these emotions are exaggerated or overindulged. Sometimes, they imply that these emotions get in the way of thinking logically or being realistic.People are sometimes criticized for being overly sentimental, as in Stop being so sentimental and looking at things through rose-colored glasses, instead of seeing what they’re really like. These kinds of criticisms are especially common in the context of art. For example, a book or film may be criticized as being overly sentimental in dealing with a historical event. This implies that it portrays the event in an idealized, simplistic, or nostalgic way instead of depicting it accurately and dealing with what really happened.Such works might also be described as melodramatic. When they’re tearfully or weakly emotional, they might be described as maudlin, mawkish, sappy, or weepy. Hallmark holiday movies are known for being sentimental.Things that are kept due to being associated with fond memories or loved ones are said to have sentimental value.Example: He’s so sentimental that he keeps all of his childhood toys.
Other Word Forms
- antisentimental adjective
- antisentimentally adverb
- hypersentimental adjective
- hypersentimentally adverb
- intersentimental adjective
- oversentimental adjective
- oversentimentally adverb
- quasi-sentimental adjective
- quasi-sentimentally adverb
- semisentimental adjective
- semisentimentally adverb
- sentimentally adverb
- supersentimental adjective
- supersentimentally adverb
- unsentimental adjective
- unsentimentally adverb
Etymology
Origin of sentimental
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.
“It has been a challenge going from the scandal to relationship to miscarriage to arrest to being pregnant again,” she says as a sentimental melody lilts in the background.
From Salon
Nor was he sentimental about jettisoning poor performers, insisting that “my obligation was to the living, not the dead.”
The album's title, Arirang, is also the name of Korea's most beloved folk song, a sentimental anthem about moving from hardship towards something better.
From BBC
He is an obvious sentimental favorite; he is trained by Mark Glatt, whose wife of 25 years, Dena, died Feb. 12 from cardiac arrest.
From Los Angeles Times
Like many cultures, flowers carry sentimental value in her religion.
From Los Angeles Times
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.
