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View synonyms for mawkish

mawkish

[ maw-kish ]

adjective

  1. characterized by sickly sentimentality; weakly emotional; maudlin.

    Synonyms: teary, sentimental

  2. having a mildly sickening flavor; slightly nauseating.


mawkish

/ ˈmɔːkɪʃ /

adjective

  1. falsely sentimental, esp in a weak or maudlin way
  2. nauseating or insipid in flavour, smell, etc
“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


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Derived Forms

  • ˈmawkishness, noun
  • ˈmawkishly, adverb
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Other Words From

  • mawkish·ly adverb
  • mawkish·ness noun
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Word History and Origins

Origin of mawkish1

1660–70; obsolete mawk maggot ( late Middle English < Old Norse mathkr maggot) + -ish 1. See maggot
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Word History and Origins

Origin of mawkish1

C17: from obsolete mawk maggot + -ish
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Example Sentences

Yet her work is all heart, her flights of fancy rich with nostalgia without being mawkish.

You want mawkish made-for-television melodrama, try The Bachelor or The Biggest Loser.

The jibe is off-key too because Wilde himself was hardly immune to the sentimental and even the mawkish.

The water, too, had become very mawkish and vapid, and there was scarcely any tea left; what remained was used up that evening.

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?"

Do you know, I couldn't help it; but that good lady would seem to me quite mawkish in her flattery!

It is a poor plot, and mawkish in character, though not without merits of style.

The pathos of these scenes is never false, never mawkish or overdone; it is the pathos of life itself.

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