sentimentality
- noun
- /ˌsɛntɪˈmɛntəlɪti/
- We are driven by sentimentality, which is false, dramatic, shallow, displayed feeling feelings not in the heart, but feelings worn on the sleeve.
- sentimentality and nostalgia
- romantic sentimentality
- the sentimentality of the novel
It's pretty sincere without, I hope ever falling into sentimentality, which I despise.
- It's pretty sincere without, I hope ever falling into sentimentality, which I despise.
- Our things have sentimental value only because we have imparted sentimentality onto them, right?
- The person who's motivated by sentimentality and empathy and all this great stuff, right?
- We are driven by sentimentality, which is false, dramatic, shallow, displayed feeling feelings not in the heart, but feelings worn on the sleeve.
- And it's gives the sentimentality a, a bigger impact in the end.
- And it's it's sentimentality revealing new principles to us about how we ought to behave.
Examples
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The film was criticized for its over-the-top sentimentality that felt insincere to the audience.
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You can't let sentimentality derail everything that we've worked so hard for.
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Personal sentimentality has no place in our movement.
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Any more sentimentality around here, I shall go back to the hospital!
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To avoid the comfortable sentimentality of being able to think that evil exists outside ourselves.
Fiction book (1997) -
There's no room for sentimentality, you know that.
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I suppose I should consider this a loss to science and a foolish surrender to sentimentality.
Fiction book (2001) -
Students who are willing to display empathy or sentimentality are putting themselves in a position of vulnerability.
Academic text (2011) -
It's pretty sincere without, I hope ever falling into sentimentality, which I despise.
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Her style shows signs of maturity; her tales are not prepubescent anymore, and her sentimentality has mellowed.
Academic text (1996)
Synonyms
An overly emotional style in art like songs or films
The act of showing very strong feelings, often more than needed
A tendency to show too much tender or nostalgic feeling about the past
A feeling of too much fake emotion that seems overly sweet
Being too emotional in a way that seems not sincere
Too much emotion that seems false
A person's exaggerated emotional behavior often shown in speech or acting
A feeling that is too emotional and seems false
Being overly emotional in a way that seems not sincere
A feeling that is too emotional in a story or film
Too much emotion in art or music that feels overdone
A feeling of being too sad and emotional, often after drinking
Antonyms
How Sentimental
Surface Forms
Morphology
sentimentality = sentimental (semi-transparent) = sentiment + al + ity
A regular nominalization: the adjective 'sentimental' + the noun-forming suffix '-ity' yields the abstract noun meaning 'the state or quality of being sentimental'.
Etymology
Sentimentality comes from the Latin sentire meaning 'to feel' and from sentiment, a 'feeling', and it shares the same root as sense and sensitive. So sentimentality is like 'too much feeling' — showing emotions in a way that is overly emotional or not real, which is why we use it for writing or films that feel exaggerated.