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The Squirming Origins of Mawkish
Mawkish really opens up a can of worms—or maggots, as it were: the word wriggled out from Middle English mawke, meaning “maggot.” Its earliest sense, used in the late 17th century but now obsolete, was synonymous with squeamish (understandable!) but not long after that mawkish was used to describe an unpleasant, nauseating, often sickeningly sweet flavor. It’s no surprise that a figurative sense of mawkish, used to describe things that are full of “sickly sweet” sentimentality, arose almost concurrently, one of several food texture- and taste-related words favored by critics to show disdain for art they deem overly emotive, including gooey, saccharine, mushy, and schmaltzy.
Examples of mawkish in a Sentence
Mark Z. Barabak, Mercury News, 15 May 2025
Despite the grievous subject matter, there is not a single note in Vega’s catalogue that could be heard as mawkish or emotionally overwrought.
—Emma Madden, Vulture, 9 May 2025
These kinds of pictures are intended to provoke—to catch the eye with their mawkish absurdity and uncanny-valley optics.
—Sophie Gilbert, The Atlantic, 5 Apr. 2025
The flashbacks are dreamy without becoming mawkish, and Gemma’s scenes in Lumon are nightmarish without feeling untethered or otherwordly.
—Ben Travers, IndieWire, 28 Feb. 2025
See All Example Sentences for mawkish
Cite this Entry
“Mawkish.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mawkish. Accessed 23 May. 2025.
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mawkish
adjective
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