Sentiment

How to spell sentiment

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce sentiment

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does sentiment mean?

1. nounAn attitude, opinion, or feeling held about something.
2. nounA tender or emotional feeling, often as distinct from cold reason.

Sentiment in a sentence

• The report captured the general sentiment of the workforce after the merger.

• He kept the worn ticket out of pure sentiment rather than any real use.

• Investor sentiment shifted sharply once the interest rates were announced.

• The card was signed with genuine warmth and sentiment.

Where does sentiment come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb sentire, which meant 'to feel, perceive, or be of an opinion', the same root that gives us 'sense', 'sentence', and 'sentinel'. From it medieval Latin formed sentimentum, meaning a feeling or an opinion, and the word passed into Old French as sentement before reaching English in the late 1300s. Early English used it broadly for both a personal opinion and an emotional reaction, a double life it still leads today. Over the 1700s the word picked up an extra flavour of tender or refined feeling, which is why 'sentimental' came to suggest emotion that is indulged for its own sake. The spelling trap lives in the middle: the unstressed 'i' in -ti- sounds like a faint schwa, so writers can drop it or guess at the ending, but remembering the Latin sentire keeps that first vowel and the final -ment in place.

How the word is built

• senti- (from Latin sentire: to feel)
• -ment (noun suffix denoting a result or state)