Meaning & use
Sentimentalism
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An excessive tendency toward emotion, nostalgia, or tender feeling, especially in art, literature, or philosophy.
See it in a sentence
Critics accused the film of sentimentalism, favoring tears over substance.
In ethics, sentimentalism holds that moral judgments arise from feeling rather than pure reason.
A note on using this word
In philosophy, "sentimentalism" is a specific technical term for moral theories, such as those of David Hume, that ground ethics in feeling rather than reason.
Words with a similar meaning
mawkishnesssappiness
Choose a synonym to suit the sentence. Meanings can overlap without being identical.
Words with an opposite meaning
realismobjectivity
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