sentimentality
Americannoun
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the quality or state of being sentimental or excessively sentimental.
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an instance of being sentimental.
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a sentimental act, gesture, expression, etc.
noun
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the state, quality, or an instance of being sentimental
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an act, statement, etc, that is sentimental
Usage
What does sentimentality mean? Sentimentality is the state or quality of being sentimental—expressing, appealing to, or being moved by sensitive or tender emotions, such as love, nostalgia, or pity. Sentiment, 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. In this way, sentimentality often means being overly sentimental. People are sometimes criticized for sentimentality, as in Your sentimentality makes you see 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 for its sentimentality 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 their sentimentality. Example: His sentimentality is what makes him keep all of his childhood toys.
Synonym Usage
See sentiment.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of sentimentality
First recorded in 1760–70; sentimental + -ity
Explanation
Sentimentality is a quality of being overly, dramatically emotional — sad or loving or nostalgic. Your sentimentality on her eightieth birthday might make your down-to-earth grandmother roll her eyes. When your emotions go overboard, becoming a little theatrical or false, that's sentimentality. A person's sentimentality might come in handy if a job as a greeting card writer opens up, or a role in a community theater's production of "Les Misérables." Sentimentality comes from the adjective sentimental, which is rooted in the Medieval Latin sentimentum, "feeling, affection or opinion."
Vocabulary lists containing sentimentality
The Diary of a Young Girl
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Just Mercy
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Internment
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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:
Instead, she said it leaned into sentimentality and stereotyping.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 27, 2026
Mr. Enrigue follows both groups on their hazardous journeys into the Sierra Madre, and the writing, translated by Natasha Wimmer, yields all the pleasures of a first-rate adventure with none of the sentimentality.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 5, 2026
"I either continued along the sheep-farming route because of sentimentality or made bold decisions."
From BBC ● Mar. 5, 2026
And while there’s definitely some sentimentality involved, it’s mostly that I’m stubborn.
From Slate ● Jan. 25, 2026
He had a deep streak of sloppy sentimentality to him and he loved to sit around fires singing sad songs of home.
From "The Killer Angels: The Classic Novel of the Civil War" by Michael Shaara
Forward-facing as ever, Ferry does admit that organizing the book itself, and sitting with the wide range of lyrics he’d penned over the years, did provide him with small regrets and sentimentalities.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 26, 2022
Leaders of these behemoths have long spoken in ambitious, gauzy sentimentalities about a broadly progressive future.
From New York Times ● Nov. 9, 2016
Our own sentimentalities will be twice removed before long.
From The New Yorker ● Nov. 2, 2016
There are two or three big sentimentalities here.
From The Guardian ● Mar. 10, 2013
In 1889, the enormous popularity in Britain of Mendelssohn’s oratorio Elijah caused George Bernard Shaw to lampoon its Sunday-school sentimentalities and its Music-school ornamentalities’.
From "The Story of Music" by Howard Goodall
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.
