Question:hard

Choose the option that is the closest synonym of the word given below.
MAWKISH

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Think of a word for sentimentality that feels forced or overdone, almost sickly sweet, especially the kind linked to tears.
Updated On: Jul 20, 2026
  • Tendentious
  • Mellifluous
  • Maudlin
  • Meridional
  • Cynical
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The Correct Option is C

Solution and Explanation

MAWKISH describes sentiment that is excessive and sickly, the kind of overdone, cloying emotion found in a badly written tearjerker.

Going through the choices:

  1. Tendentious means biased or one-sided in argument, an idea about opinion rather than feeling.
  2. Mellifluous means sweet-sounding, describing a pleasant voice or music, a quality of sound, not emotion.
  3. Maudlin means weakly and tearfully sentimental, often self-pitying, which is the same overdone emotional excess that mawkish names.
  4. Meridional refers to the south or to noon, a geographic and time-related word with no bearing on emotion; it only looks plausible because it sounds vaguely similar to other refined-sounding words.
  5. Cynical describes a distrustful, unsentimental attitude, essentially the opposite of mawkish's excessive sentimentality.

Maudlin shares mawkish's sense of exaggerated, weepy sentimentality most closely. The correct answer is option (c) Maudlin.

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