How to Use sentimentalize in a Sentence

sentimentalize

verb
  • The movie sentimentalizes the past.
  • He does not sentimentalize in his biography.
  • The filmmakers don’t try to tone down Dahl’s darkness or sentimentalize the children’s plight.
    — Peter Rainer, The Christian Science Monitor, 7 Dec. 2022
  • Those who forget the past may be condemned to repeat it, but those who sentimentalize the past are rewarded with best-seller status.
    — Carlos Lozada, The New Yorker, 22 Nov. 2021
  • Kimberly tries her darnedest not to feel sorry for herself, and the authors pay her the respect of not permitting us to sentimentalize her much, either.
    — Peter Marks, Washington Post, 11 Nov. 2022
  • War is wretched beyond description, and only a fool or a fraud could sentimentalize its cruel reality.
    — Chuck Yarborough, cleveland, 9 Oct. 2019
  • The Obama-Biden origin story has been often told, and often sentimentalized.
    — New York Times, 16 Aug. 2019
  • Cruise is a likable wrongdoer, but Neeson’s Felt is sentimentalized.
    — Armond White, National Review, 29 Sep. 2017
  • This extinction engine does not sentimentalize or aestheticize the materials of the world.
    — Anne Boyer, Harper's Magazine, 27 Apr. 2021
  • He has been adored, sanitized, revived, pathologized, sentimentalized, and combed for polite company.
    — Literary Hub, 26 June 2026
  • This week, though, no one should, under the pressure of Trumpism, sentimentalize Macron, or underrate his difficulties.
    — Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker, 25 May 2017
  • Fontane neither condemns nor sentimentalizes, but tells his tale with clarity and humor—making this picture of Berlin society all the more devastating.
    — Claire Tomalin, WSJ, 22 Nov. 2018
  • Wajda and Linda refuse to sentimentalize Strzeminski’s plight.
    — Peter Rainer, The Christian Science Monitor, 26 May 2017
  • Unlike many Holocaust films that sentimentalize individual heroism, Caught by Night doesn’t seek to inspire so much as to bear witness.
    — Jeremy Lybarger, The New York Review of Books, 20 Apr. 2020
  • Even bluesy entr’actes, though achingly sung and strummed by Martin Luther McCoy, only sentimentalize and downplay a story that wants to stretch upward.
    — Lily Janiak, San Francisco Chronicle, 2 May 2018
  • They are edited, softened, brokered, litigated, sentimentalized, and pruned.
    — Literary Hub, 26 June 2026
  • Hollywood geeks might sentimentalize Casablanca, but Breathless goes deeper.
    — Armond White, National Review, 16 Sep. 2022
  • Unlike most war stories, All Quiet on the Western Front makes no effort to justify or sentimentalize either side of the conflict.
    — Time, 2 Nov. 2022
  • But Owen does exactly nothing to sentimentalize his character; his performance is uncompromised.
    — Matthew Gilbert, BostonGlobe.com, 30 Aug. 2019
  • McGee accentuates Kenneth’s somber shading to a degree that risks sentimentalizing the character.
    — Theater Critic, Los Angeles Times, 29 May 2026
  • Keeping both feet firmly on the ground and refusing to sentimentalize an essentially unlikeable character, Brown triumphs as Charley’s flinty mother.
    — Marilyn Stasio, Variety, 3 Nov. 2021
  • The film neither glamorizes nor indicts Solanas, who Taylor humanizes without softening or sentimentalizing her.
    — Jim Hemphill, IndieWire, 10 June 2026
  • Nothing if not a rigorous dialectician, Bong refuses to sentimentalize the Kims’ togetherness or their poverty.
    — Mark Olsenstaff Writer, Los Angeles Times, 11 Oct. 2019
  • Romanticizing and sentimentalizing death and destruction this way belongs to a deep-set (almost psychotic) liberal fantasy.
    — Armond White, National Review, 4 Aug. 2017
  • Her transitions from social observation to personal revelations (family home videos and her sister’s social work) sentimentalize exploitation of the working class by the bourgeoisie.
    — Armond White, National Review, 13 July 2022
  • In the process, though, the novel diminishes her vivid voice and personality, softens her views, and minimizes some essential relationships while sentimentalizing or coarsening others.
    — Sarah Stone, San Francisco Chronicle, 31 May 2018
  • Unfortunately, Reyna rarely rises above stereotype, either sentimentalized by Cora or demonized by Troy.
    — Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, New York Times, 5 Jan. 2018
  • Loznitsa neither sentimentalizes nor mocks this impulse; for him, the human will to resist, to cling fast to integrity and courage in the face of a mounting totalitarian horror, is something as real, as undeniable, and therefore worth acknowledging, as the horror itself.
    — Justin Chang, New Yorker, 20 Mar. 2026
  • Will Swenson, the accomplished Broadway actor, offers an unusually sympathetic yet never sentimentalized Sweeney.
    — Theater Critic, Los Angeles Times, 3 Feb. 2026

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'sentimentalize.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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