Sentimental

How to spell sentimental

11 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce sentimental

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does sentimental mean?

1. adjectivePrompted by or expressing tender emotions, nostalgia, or affection, sometimes to an excessive degree.

Sentimental in a sentence

• She kept the old ticket stub for purely sentimental reasons.

• The wedding speech struck a warm, sentimental note.

Where does sentimental come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word grows out of the Latin verb sentire, which meant 'to feel, perceive, or be aware', the same root that gives us 'sense' and 'sentence'. From it Medieval Latin formed sentimentum, meaning a feeling or an opinion shaped by feeling, which passed into English as 'sentiment' by the 1400s. The adjective 'sentimental' was coined in English in the 1700s by adding the suffix -al, and it surged into fashion after Laurence Sterne's hugely popular 1768 novel 'A Sentimental Journey', which made tender, emotional refinement something to admire. Over time the word drifted toward its modern flavour of being governed by emotion or nostalgia rather than reason, sometimes with a hint of excess. The spelling trap lives in the unstressed middle: the buried 'i' of senti- and the schwa in the -ment- block are easy to slur, so it helps to remember the visible parent word 'sentiment' sitting whole inside it.

How the word is built

• senti- (from Latin sentire: to feel)
• -ment (noun suffix forming 'sentiment')
• -al (adjective suffix)