How to Use mawkish in a Sentence

mawkish

adjective

• This may sound mawkish—but how much of our inner life is first learned through music?
  — The New Yorker, 6 Dec. 2021
• But Lawrence’s outfit was less mawkish, and just a little more glamorous than back then.
  — Daniel Rodgers, Vogue, 13 Oct. 2023
• Walk On,’ a salve about hope and redemption that seemed trite and mawkish several months ago.
  — Max Londberg and Timothy Finn, kansascity.com, 12 June 2017
• In most hands, this business of the mother-figure who sacrifices all for a child would be mawkish.
  — Rumaan Alam, The New Republic, 12 Apr. 2021
• Victoria Livengood’s wobbly mezzo makes her hard to take in the mawkish role of the Mother.
  — John Von Rhein, chicagotribune.com, 5 Nov. 2017
• These are not sloppy, mawkish performances, and Bercot blesses their restraint with a pietà that is the year’s visual epiphany.
  — Armond White, National Review, 2 Nov. 2022
• Bill Nighy adds a light comic touch, and is a welcome foil for some of Their Finest’s occasional mawkish moments.
  — Thomas Barrie, A-LIST, 6 Apr. 2017
• What might seem mawkish on paper ends up deeply affecting in practice.
  — Siddhant Adlakha, Variety, 28 Dec. 2023
• This finale suggests a mawkish yet useful fact: that the cure for perfectionism is love.
  — Katy Waldman, The New Yorker, 26 Feb. 2020
• Kara’s scenes are full of swelling strings and mawkish sentimentality that seem to be begging you to Feel Something Now.
  — Kyle Orland, Ars Technica, 24 May 2018
• But this was a very strange debut, merging grim toughness with mawkish softening twists.
  — Darren Franich, EW.com, 12 Nov. 2019
• Gilchrist, who isn’t on the spectrum, is persuasive and thoughtful enough to avoid making Sam feel like a stereotype, even in more mawkish or predictable moments.
  — Sophie Gilbert, The Atlantic, 13 Aug. 2017
• Like a very, very mawkish improv set, the episode struggles to insert all this information while moving the plot forward.
  — Rebecca Farley, refinery29.com, 5 June 2018
• Lots of so-so joshery about college life, a big mawkish moment and a redemptive theme make this strictly mall fodder.
  — Chronicle Staff Report, San Francisco Chronicle, 25 Oct. 2017
• Professional critics found such works mawkish, and heavy-metal purists dissed Linkin Park in crasser terms—gay or, yes, girly.
  — Spencer Kornhaber, The Atlantic, 25 June 2018
• The title character seems at odds with his own story—his behavior resists the mawkish sheen of Trevorrow's style.
  — Ben Sachs, Chicago Reader, 22 June 2017
• And so much of what concerned me as important in the earlier pages of my diary now seems mawkish, trivial or beneath notice.
  — Paul Theroux, New York Times, 30 Mar. 2020
• And the inevitable reaffirmation of the family’s bonds, strengthened by the spirit of the girls’ mother, is touching without being too mawkish.
  — David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter, 18 Aug. 2022
• Will the delicate touch that has scored so effectively with viewers and Emmy voters be abandoned for mawkish valedictions?
  — John Anderson, WSJ, 14 Mar. 2023
• Sin City trash whiplashes with mawkish cute-kid sensitivity.
  — Darren Franich, EW.com, 3 Jan. 2022
• Even when the season slows down a bit, Sudeikis’ vulnerability is touching, without ever being mawkish.
  — oregonlive, 20 July 2021
• But the show made the relationship between Deborah and Ava spiky and unpredictable, touching without ever being mawkish, and revealing about the ways both women had to adapt to a show business world that judges females harshly.
  — oregonlive, 23 Dec. 2021
• Goodness is difficult to depict without becoming mawkish, but Mr. Gurnah does it superbly.
  — Sam Sacks, WSJ, 26 Aug. 2022
• A great deal of Confederate iconography was not commissioned in remembrance of soldierly valor or mawkish depiction of genteel Dixie.
  — Andrew C. McCarthy, National Review, 19 Aug. 2017
• Despite multifaceted characters and convincing performances (particularly from Cosio and Soria), Lemus and Chávez’s dialogue sometimes feels preachy, mawkish or on-the-nose.
  — Judy Berman, Time, 13 Feb. 2020

Last Updated: 30 Sep 2024