sentimentalize
Americanverb (used without object)
verb (used with object)
verb
Usage
What does sentimentalize mean? Sentimentalize means to view or portray someone or something in a way that’s sentimental—one that appeals to sensitive or tender emotions, such as love, nostalgia, or pity. Sentimentalize and sentimental 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 sentimentalizing (or oversentimentalizing), as in Stop sentimentalizing everything and looking at things through rose-colored glasses. These kinds of criticisms are especially common in the context of art. For example, a book or film may be criticized as sentimentalizing 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. The words romanticize, idealize, and glamorize are used in similar ways. Example: Stories that sentimentalize the past as a golden age are often drawing on a false nostalgia and wishing to go back to a time that never really existed.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of sentimentalize
First recorded in 1790–1800; sentimental + -ize
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.
Although this second season has its share of "Rogue One" cameos, including the return of Forest Whitaker’s Saw Gerrera, it mostly brushes off the franchise’s tendency to sentimentalize.
From Salon • Apr. 22, 2025
As a bright October day unfolds, the contest mingles with an unavoidable sense of inevitability, but not enough for these once-a-week chums to unnecessarily sentimentalize the situation.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 14, 2025
But fealty isn’t always a productive strategy, and while the first film greatly tempers the book’s shocks, it doesn’t sentimentalize the source material, as this one does.
From New York Times • Dec. 15, 2021
Before the war, it was an era of deceit and looming crisis; after, we see two responses — escapism, into nature and landscape, and attempts to sentimentalize the unresolved problems of the still-young republic.
From Washington Post • Mar. 13, 2020
The pianoforte can sentimentalize like the flute, make a martial proclamation like the trumpet, intone a prayer like the churchly trombone.
From How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art by Krehbiel, Henry Edward
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.
