Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Excessively and objectionably sentimental. See Synonyms at sentimental.
- adj. Sickening or insipid in taste.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Maggoty. [Not found in this literal sense. Compare mawky, 1.] Hence Loathsome; apt to cause loathing or nausea; sickening.
- Insipid; sickening; sickly: as, mawkish champagne; mawkish sentimentality.
Wiktionary
- adj. archaic or dialectal Feeling sick, queasy.
- adj. archaic Sickening or insipid in taste or smell.
- adj. Excessively or falsely sentimental; showing a sickly excess of sentiment.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Apt to cause satiety or loathing; nauseous; slightly nauseating; disgusting.
- adj. Easily disgusted; squeamish; sentimentally fastidious.
- adj. Weakly sentimental; maudlin.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. effusively or insincerely emotional
Etymologies
- From mawk + -ish. (Wiktionary)
- From Middle English mawke, maggot, variant of magot; see maggot. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“This book, small and easily digested, stopping just short of the maudlin and the mawkish, is on the whole sincere, sentimental, and skillful.”
Tuesdays With Morrie: Summary and book reviews of Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom.
“I hope that that song doesn't sound too much like that kind of mawkish Christian rock song.”
“Professor, "mawkish" doesn't even begin to describe it.”
“Mr. BROWN: It's a very emotional (unintelligible) and not in a kind of mawkish way either.”
“You have written about this so affectionately and without a hint of the mawkish which is a difficult balance, I find.”
“There's another trope that pops up with some frequency to do the same work, only instead of focusing on the trauma experienced by individual soldiers, it peddles a kind of mawkish brotherhood-between-soldiers as the greater moral good in war.”
“Even its detractors, one of whom called the book "mawkish" and poorly written, conceded the book has had an enormous influence, and it did so by virtue of its sincerity.”
“However, Lost in Showbiz admits to being puzzled by the slightly chippy, AA Gill-ish tone of the US cable, which described American shows broadcast in Saudi Arabia as "mawkish".”
“I don't think I've ever used the word "mawkish," but it came to mind more than once while I was listening to this crap.”
“We have come to hold, in a kind of mawkish stupor, that greatness is to be gauged by self-sacrifice.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘mawkish’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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my fab list
blowsabella, aperçu, froideur, salubrious, abject, gallipot, mumchance, wainscot, virago, macerate, lascivious, clandestine and 181 more...
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Words to research
balkanize, obstreperous, dysphoria, euphoria, sinecure, abstruse, chin music, colophon, signature, notwithstanding, nullity, nullity of a dete... and 26 more...
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mots justes
No true synonyms, no other word will do.
dysphemism, nyehre, conflate, onomatopœic, galumph, zeitgeist, mercenary, theomeny, git, snarky, sass, smarmy and 46 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6689 more...
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gre2
aberrant, aberration, aboveboard, abrasive, abstemious, acme, admonish, affable, affluent, alacrity, allegory, alleviate and 1824 more...
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Go over
mollify, obstinate, obviate, occlude, onerous, obscure, paragon, pedantic, perfunctory, placate, placid, prodigal and 364 more...
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Need to Know!
elicit, educe, refute, cogency, churlish, martinet, veritable, polyglot, dissemble, histrionics, prevarication, verbiage and 166 more...
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words I love to use
kerfuffle, smarmy, sketchy, grim, wheedle, piffle, prattle, loggerheads, snarky, piddling, nix, caterwaul and 90 more...
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The Last Werewolf
This novel by Glen Duncan, aside from being a ripping yarn and beautifully written, is just littered with words that I had to look up and discover that often his use of the word not only fitted per...
gurns, bok, chimney breast, dichotomy, Platonic form, filthy, Platonic Form, mathematics, BAM, skirls, clarity, blundering and 298 more...
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ADW1
obdurate, obstinate, behest, injunction, enjoin, circumspect, ensconce, discursive, lugubrious, doleful, somber, ken and 2476 more...
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Oooh, good word!
cloyless, laconic, pontificate, mawkish, pedantic, hubris, inchoate
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sat
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GRE list 1
Bloviate, Bacchanalia, mirth, covet, inconsequential, prescient, heresy, revelry, modality, gentrify, vitiate, tantalize and 182 more...
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Vocab++
Words as I learn them.
fetid, mezzanine, hiatus, austerity, subliminal, resplendent, implacable, impugn, debase, exiguous, cirque, holster and 2538 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for mawkish.
PossibleUnderscore See maudlin. Jul 17, 2009
yarb Poetical mawkish duff gen/where a buzzard is 'noble' and lands/in a tree (surprise, surprise!)/to corroborate some trite tenet/cum badly-observed Nature Note.
- Peter Reading, C, 1984 Jul 23, 2008