Word of the Day

Sunday December 27, 2009

mawkish [MOCK-ish]

adjective

The never-seen-before special The Beatles on Record is fascinating on so many levels. For those old enough to remember the Fab Four in their heyday, The Beatles on Record is a walk down memory lane -- mellow and laid-back, nostalgic without being mawkish or sentimental.

Alex Strachan, "Beatles documentary well worth watching", The Ottawa Citizen, Dec 4, 2009
The ending of "The Creed of Violence" is desperately sentimental, mawkish even, constructed to touch fathers and sons everywhere. After all, it's difficult to come up with a happy ending in Juarez or El Paso in 1910. It was hard living out there under the best of circumstances, even fictional ones. But after all its explosions and dubious characters and high-gloss language, "The Creed of Violence" reminds us that we needn't be rich to wrest meaning from our lives.

Carolyn See, "A breathless ride along Mexico's revolutionary road", The Washington Post, Nov 27, 2009
The general air of gloom--hopeless gloom--was depressing. Such mawkish sentimentality and despair; such inane and mortifying confessions; such longings for a lover to come; such sighings over a lover departed; such cravings for "only"--"only" a grave in some dark, dank solitude.

Kate Sanborn (1839 - 1917) An American writer. The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition (1895)

Origin of the Word

Mawkish, approximately 1668, derives from Medieval English mawke "maggot", tending to make nauseous.