maudlin
Americanadjective
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tearfully or weakly emotional; foolishly sentimental.
a maudlin story of a little orphan and her lost dog.
-
foolishly or mawkishly sentimental because of drunkenness.
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of maudlin
1500–10; special use of Maudlin, Middle English Maudelen ≪ Late Latin Magdalēnē < Greek Magdalēnḗ Mary Magdalene, portrayed in art as a weeping penitent
Explanation
You can use maudlin to describe something that brings tears to your eyes, or makes you feel very emotional. Tearjerkers like "Forrest Gump" and "Titanic" can be described as maudlin. Maudlin was a form of the name Mary Magdalene, a character from the Bible represented in paintings as a weeping sinner asking forgiveness from Jesus. Maudlin is often paired with sentimental, or even schlocky, to describe cry-fests, as in "I can't watch another second of that overly-sentimental, maudlin soap opera. Turn that schlock off."
Vocabulary lists containing maudlin
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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.
Played as a maudlin admission that she’s a fallen woman, this scene would doom the play to a dusty footnote in O’Neill’s oeuvre.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 14, 2025
Lyrical but not maudlin, the book navigates family disagreements, competing philosophies and different ways the human spirit can manifest in the human body.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 12, 2025
But in the case of this maudlin, overwrought drama, “keep your eyes open” would be a more fitting demand.
From Salon ● Nov. 30, 2025
But the film eventually turns maudlin, going so far as to include a prolonged scene where Adam says goodbye to the memory of his parents in a restaurant they used to frequent as a family.
From Salon ● Apr. 3, 2025
I could almost hear Luzan’s bird-high voice, a bizarre pitch that like much else about him was a little silly, a dress of maudlin order on a man of such girth and weight.
From "Native Speaker" by Chang-rae Lee
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.
