sentimentalist

[ sen-tuh-men-tl-ist ]

noun

1. one given to sentiment or sentimentality.

Word History and Origins

Origin of sentimentalist¹

First recorded in 1770–80; sentimental + -ist

Example Sentences

One thing the new/old and often outspoken Dodgers reliever is not: a sentimentalist.

From Los Angeles Times

Sergei Rachmaninoff is a popular composer, but many classical music experts dismiss him as a sentimentalist who leaned into nostalgia.

From New York Times

Yet Rachmaninoff isn’t likely to top any lists of great composers; during his lifetime and since, his reputation has been that of a sentimentalist and nostalgic who was guilty, worst of all, of being an outlier in classical music’s embrace of modernism.

From New York Times

In a subsequent interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Stallone called his absence from the film “a regretful situation”: “It was taken in a direction that is quite different than I would’ve taken it. It’s a different philosophy — Irwin Winkler’s and Michael B. Jordan’s. I wish them well, but I’m much more of a sentimentalist. I like my heroes getting beat up, but I just don’t want them going into that dark space. I just feel people have enough darkness.”

From Los Angeles Times

He is uncompromising in matters of taste, ethics and English usage, as well as a wet-eyed sentimentalist and a man who likes to have a good time.

From New York Times