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sentimental - 4 dictionary results

sen⋅ti⋅men⋅tal

  [sen-tuh-men-tl]
Use sentimental in a Sentence
–adjective
1. expressive of or appealing to sentiment, esp. the tender emotions and feelings, as love, pity, or nostalgia: a sentimental song.
2. pertaining to or dependent on sentiment: We kept the old photograph for purely sentimental reasons.
3. weakly emotional; mawkishly susceptible or tender: the sentimental Victorians.
4. characterized by or showing sentiment or refined feeling.
Origin:
1740–50; sentiment + -al 1

Related forms:
sen⋅ti⋅men⋅tal⋅ly, adverb

Synonyms:
1. romantic, tender, nostalgic; maudlin, bathetic.

Antonyms:
1, 4. dispassionate.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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sen·ti·men·tal   (sěn'tə-měn'tl)   
adj.  
    1. Characterized or swayed by sentiment.
    2. Affectedly or extravagantly emotional.
  2. Resulting from or colored by emotion rather than reason or realism.
  3. Appealing to the sentiments, especially to romantic feelings: sentimental music.
sen'ti·men'tal·ly adv.
Synonyms: These adjectives mean overly or insincerely emotional: a sentimental card; a bathetic novel; maudlin words of sympathy; mawkish sentiment; mushy effusiveness; a romantic adolescent; a schmaltzy song.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Sentimental

Sen`ti*men"tal\, a. [Cf. F. sentimental.]

1. Having, expressing, or containing a sentiment or sentiments; abounding with moral reflections; containing a moral reflection; didactic. [Obsoles.]

Nay, ev'n each moral sentimental stroke, Where not the character, but poet, spoke, He lopped, as foreign to his chaste design, Nor spared a useless, though a golden line. --Whitehead.

2. Inclined to sentiment; having an excess of sentiment or sensibility; indulging the sensibilities for their own sake; artificially or affectedly tender; -- often in a reproachful sense.

A sentimental mind is rather prone to overwrought feeling and exaggerated tenderness. --Whately.

3. Addressed or pleasing to the emotions only, usually to the weaker and the unregulated emotions.

Syn: Romantic.

Usage: Sentimental, Romantic. Sentimental usually describes an error or excess of the sensibilities; romantic, a vice of the imagination. The votary of the former gives indulgence to his sensibilities for the mere luxury of their excitement; the votary of the latter allows his imagination to rove for the pleasure of creating scenes of ideal enjoiment. "Perhaps there is no less danger in works called sentimental. They attack the heart more successfully, because more cautiously." --V. Knox. "I can not but look on an indifferency of mind, as to the good or evil things of this life, as a mere romantic fancy of such who would be thought to be much wiser than they ever were, or could be." --Bp. Stillingfleet.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
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Language Translation for : sentimental
Spanish: sentimental,
German: sentimental,
Japanese: 感傷的な
More Translations »

sentimental 
1749, "pertaining to or characterized by sentiment," from sentiment (q.v.). At first without pejorative connotations; meaning "having too much sentiment" had emerged by 1793 (sentimentalist).
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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