sentiment

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A thought, view, or attitude, especially one based mainly on emotion instead of reason: An anti-American sentiment swept through the country. See Synonyms at feeling, opinion.
2. n. Emotion; feeling: Different forms of music convey different kinds of sentiment.
3. n. Tender or romantic feeling.
4. n. Maudlin emotion; sentimentality.
5. n. The emotional import of a passage as distinct from its form of expression.
6. n. The expression of delicate and sensitive feeling, especially in art and literature.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. Feeling; sensation; sentience; life.
2. n. Higher feeling: emotion.
3. n. In psychology, an emotional judgment; also, the faculty for a special emotion.
4. n. Sensibility, or a tendency to make emotional judgments; tender susceptibility.
5. n. Exhibition or manifestation of feeling or sensibility, as in literature, art, or music; a literary or artistic expression of a refined or delicate feeling or fancy.
6. n. Thought; opinion; notion; judgment; the decision of the mind formed by deliberation or reflection: as, to express one's sentiments on a subject.
7. n. The sense, thought, or opinion contained in words, but considered as distinct from them: as, we may like the sentiment when we dislike the language. Hence A thought expressed in striking words; especially, a sentence expressive of some particularly important or agreeable thought, or of a wish or desire; in particular, a toast, often couched in proverbial or epigrammatic language.
8. n. plural In phrenology, the second division of the moral or affective faculties of the mind, the first being termed propensities. See phrenology.
9. n. Taste; quality.
10. n. = Syn. 2–4. Sentiment, Thought, Feeling. Sentiment has a peculiar place between thought and feeling, in which it also approaches the meaning of principle. It is more than that feeling which is sensation or emotion, by containing more of thought and by being more lofty, while it contains too much feeling to be merely thought, and it has large influence over the will: for example, the sentiment of patriotism; the sentiment of honor; the world is ruled by sentiment. The thought in a sentiment is often that of duty, and is penetrated and exalted by feeling.

Wiktionary

1. n. A general thought, feeling, or sense.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A thought prompted by passion or feeling; a state of mind in view of some subject; feeling toward or respecting some person or thing; disposition prompting to action or expression.
2. n. Hence, generally, a decision of the mind formed by deliberation or reasoning; thought; opinion; notion; judgment.
3. n. A sentence, or passage, considered as the expression of a thought; a maxim; a saying; a toast.
4. n. Sensibility; feeling; tender susceptibility.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a personal belief or judgment that is not founded on proof or certainty
2. n. tender, romantic, or nostalgic feeling or emotion