SENTIMENTAL • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Sentimental

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/sˌɛntəmˈɛntəl/ /sˌɛnəmˈɛntəl/ /sˌɛntəmˈɛnəl/ /sˌɛnəmˈɛnəl/ Listen

adjective

Sentimental adj.

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."

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."

3.

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

Synonyms: Romantic. 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." "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."

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Etymology of 'Sentimental'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Sentimental" Quotes from Famous Books

... belief that other families, other communities, other classes and other countries should work out their own salvation and he leaves them to do it. In all charitable, philanthropic and community "drives" he gives freely but is not lavish nor sentimental about it. It is often a "business proposition" ...

— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict

... ground. He waded toward wallowing. This is a perilous way of living and the sad little end of Euphemia, flushed and coughing, left him no doubt in many ways still more exposed to the temptations of the sentimental byway and the emotional gloss. Happily this is a book about Lady Harman and not an exhaustive monograph upon Mr. Brumley. We will at least leave him the refuge of a ...

— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... been missing the chance of my life. I went up the way there an hour or two since—Young Islay, a soldier, coarse, ashamed of sentiment, and now I go down another man altogether. I would not say it to any one but yourself; you're a sort of sentimental person in a wholesale way; you'll understand. Eh, what? You'll understand!" He threw out his chest; breathed fully. "I'm a new man, I'm telling you. I wonder where the eyes of ...

— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro

... for a sentimental impressionist and I went below. Stateroom forty-seven was mine. We three had been separated in the shuffle, and I knew not who was to be my room-mate. Feeling very downhearted, I stretched myself on the upper berth, and yielded to a mood of penitential ...

— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service

... some months by her pride, as also by the exigencies of etiquette, she only disclosed her sentimental passion by glances and a mutual exchange of signs of approval; but at last she was tired of self-restraint and martyrdom, and, detaining M. de Lauzun one day in a recess, she placed her written offer of ...

— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan

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