mawkish

[ maw-kish ]

/ ˈmɔ kɪʃ /

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See synonyms for: mawkish / mawkishness on Thesaurus.com

adjective

characterized by sickly sentimentality; weakly emotional; maudlin.

having a mildly sickening flavor; slightly nauseating.

OTHER WORDS FOR mawkish

1 sentimental, teary.

See synonyms for mawkish on Thesaurus.com

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Origin of mawkish

1660–70; obsolete mawk maggot (late Middle English <Old Norse mathkr maggot) + -ish¹. See maggot

OTHER WORDS FROM mawkish

mawk·ish·ly, adverbmawk·ish·ness, noun

Words nearby mawkish

mavourneen, mavun, maw, mawger, mawkin, mawkish, Mawlamyine, Mawlid, Mawson, max, maxi

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

How to use mawkish in a sentence

Yet her work is all heart, her flights of fancy rich with nostalgia without being mawkish.
The Singular Artist of New Yorkistan|Lizzie Crocker|November 14, 2014|DAILY BEAST
You want mawkish made-for-television melodrama, try The Bachelor or The Biggest Loser.
The Stench of Sochi|Alex Berenson|February 12, 2014|DAILY BEAST
The jibe is off-key too because Wilde himself was hardly immune to the sentimental and even the mawkish.
Charles Dickens' Enduring Insights on Human Loss and Suffering|David Frum|February 18, 2013|DAILY BEAST
The water, too, had become very mawkish and vapid, and there was scarcely any tea left; what remained was used up that evening.
Digby Heathcote|W.H.G. Kingston

Before I could answer he went on: "I'm no mawkish sentimentalist, and I won't allow anybody to be sorry for me—do you hear?"
In Search of the Unknown|Robert W. Chambers
Do you know, I couldn't help it; but that good lady would seem to me quite mawkish in her flattery!
Magnum Bonum|Charlotte M. Yonge
It is a poor plot, and mawkish in character, though not without merits of style.
Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge|Arthur Christopher Benson
The pathos of these scenes is never false, never mawkish or overdone; it is the pathos of life itself.
Essays on Modern Novelists|William Lyon Phelps

British Dictionary definitions for mawkish

mawkish

/ (ˈmɔːkɪʃ) /

adjective

falsely sentimental, esp in a weak or maudlin way

nauseating or insipid in flavour, smell, etc

Derived forms of mawkish

mawkishly, adverbmawkishness, noun

Word Origin for mawkish

C17: from obsolete mawk maggot + -ish

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

mawkish

OTHER WORDS FOR mawkish

Origin of mawkish

OTHER WORDS FROM mawkish

Words nearby mawkish

Words related to mawkish

How to use mawkish in a sentence

British Dictionary definitions for mawkish

Derived forms of mawkish

Word Origin for mawkish