To express or portray something in a mawkish manner; to render something sentimental to the point of being sickly or excessive. This often involves an overabundance of emotion, cloying sweetness, or contrived feeling, frequently lacking genuine depth or sincerity. It can be applied to various forms of expression, including writing, art, performance, or even everyday conversation, and often results in an audience feeling uncomfortable, embarrassed, or even disgusted due to the heightened artificiality of the sentiment.
Mawkishize meaning with examples
- The director was accused of mawkishizing the historical drama by injecting an overly romantic subplot, sacrificing accuracy for cheap emotional manipulation. The audience found the heavy-handed sentimentality distracting from the original narrative, ultimately harming its critical reception. The film lost its substance, failing to capture the realities of the historical period it was depicting.
- The songwriter was criticized for mawkishizing the lyrics. The excessive use of metaphors and similes turned a simple expression of love into a syrupy and inauthentic experience. The excessive reliance on clichés and predictable word choices made the song feel insincere, leaving listeners unimpressed.
- During the speech, the politician began to mawkishize the situation. The blatant appeals to emotion, coupled with exaggerated accounts of hardship, came across as manipulative rather than empathetic. Rather than building trust, the overtly sentimental display only solidified the public's cynicism.
- The artist's attempt to convey the loss was seen by critics as mawkishizing the original art through excessive visual symbolism. The paintings, initially filled with simple images, had become overloaded with meaning and heavy-handed expressions of grief, leading to a loss of the paintings original purity.