mawkish

Definition

Excessively or falsely sentimental; showing a sickly excess of sentiment.

Etymology

From mawk + -ish.

Example Sentences

• "Some of Mr. Williams’s performances were criticized for a mawkish sentimentality, like “Patch Adams,” a 1998 film that once again cast him as a good-hearted doctor, and “Bicentennial Man,” a 1999 science-fiction feature in which he played an android."
• "I found [Christoph] Buchel’s appropriation of the boat in which so many migrants lost their lives a vile and mawkish spectacle in the context of the biennale."
• "The tabloids branded him James Hewitt forevermore as the “love rat,” and Pasternak was excoriated for peddling mawkish fantasy."