Definition

1. Verb (transitive):

   • To cause someone or something to become sentimental; to imbue with excessive or inappropriate sentiment.
   • To view or portray something in an excessively emotional, nostalgic, or tender way, often ignoring its true nature or complexity.

2. Verb (intransitive):

   • To act in a sentimental manner; to indulge in or express sentimental thoughts or feelings.

Usage and Examples

• Transitive verb (to make sentimental):

  • The film's soundtrack sentimentalizes the harsh reality of the war.
  • We must be careful not to sentimentalize historical figures, remembering their flaws as well as their virtues.

• Intransitive verb (to act sentimentally):

  • He tends to sentimentalize when he talks about his childhood home.
  • Don't sentimentalize; we need to make a practical decision.

Advanced Usage and Nuances

• Critical Connotation: The word often carries a critical or negative connotation, implying that the sentimentality is excessive, false, or manipulative.

  • The biography was criticized for trying to sentimentalize the dictator's early years.

• In Artistic Critique: Frequently used in literary, film, and art criticism to describe works that rely on cheap emotion.

  • The director refused to sentimentalize the ending, leaving it raw and unresolved.

Variants and Related Words

• Sentimental (adjective): Characterized by excessive, self-indulgent, or superficial feelings of tenderness, sadness, or nostalgia.
  • a sentimental song about lost love
• Sentimentalism (noun): Excessive indulgence in sentiment, especially in art or literature.
• Sentimentality (noun): The quality of being sentimental.
• Sentimentalization (noun): The process or result of making something sentimental.
  • The sentimentalization of rural life in the novel.

Synonyms

• Romanticize: To deal with or describe in an idealized, unrealistic, or sentimental way.
• Idealize: To regard or represent as perfect or better than in reality.
• Sugarcoat: To make something seem more pleasant or acceptable than it is.

Antonyms

• Desentimentalize: To remove sentimental qualities from.
• Objectify: To treat as an object, often without regard for emotion.
• Criticize: To evaluate or judge analytically and without undue emotion.

Related Phrases and Idioms

• To view through rose-tinted glasses: To see only the pleasant aspects of something, similar to sentimentalizing.
  • He views his college years through rose-tinted glasses, forgetting all the stress.
• To gush over: To express excessive enthusiasm or sentiment about something.
  • She gushed over the old photographs, remembering every detail fondly.

Verb

1. act in a sentimental way or indulge in sentimental thoughts or expression
2. make (someone or something) sentimental or imbue with sentimental qualities
   • Too much poetry sentimentalizes the mind
   • These experiences have sentimentalized her
3. look at with sentimentality or turn into an object of sentiment
   • Don't sentimentalize the past events