''sentiment'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260817195045-00-⌔

sentiment - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

sentiment (countable and uncountable, plural sentiments)

• A general thought, feeling, or sense.
  • ✤ Synonyms: emotion; affect
  • ✤ The sentiment emerged that we were acting too soon.
  • ✤ “Now, my dear young friend,” continued the bookseller, “you seem fond of reason; let me talk a little reason to you. Here, take your pamphlet again: there is good material in it, but it requires the making up. Leave out some of your arguments, and throw in a few sentiments,—something about free-born Britons and wooden shoes! Englishmen like to have a few sentiments ready for after-dinner use, in case of a speech…¹
  • ✤ The departure was not unduly prolonged. […] Within the door Mrs. Spoker hastily imparted to Mrs. Love a few final sentiments on the subject of Divine Intention in the disposition of buckets; farewells and last commiserations; a deep, guttural instigation to the horse; and the wheels of the waggonette crunched heavily away into obscurity.²
• (uncountable) Feelings, especially tender feelings, as apart from reason or judgment, or of a weak or foolish kind.
  • ✤ Hypernym: emotion
  • ✤ Near-synonyms: feels; maudlinness
  • ✤ Good decision-making is not governed by mere sentiment.
  • ✤ To do the job thoroughly sentiment must be ignored and it seems inevitable that the famous Great Hall and the Doric Arch will have to be sacrificed to progress.³
  • ✤ Despite personal schisms and differences in spiritual experience, there is a very coherent theology of Snape shared between the wives. To examine this manifestation of religious fandom, I will first discuss the canon scepticism and anti-Rowling sentiment that helps to contextualise the wider belief in Snape as a character who extends beyond book and film.⁴

Etymology

From Old French sentement, from Latin sentimentum.

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈsɛn.tɪ.mənt/
• Audio (US): 🔊

Printed 2026-08-17.

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Footnotes

1. 1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “Publishing”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 15: ↩

2. 1921, Ben Travers, chapter 5, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC: ↩

3. 1960 February, R. C. Riley, “The London-Birmingham services - Past, Present and Future”, in Trains Illustrated, page 99: ↩

4. 2014 March 3, Zoe Alderton, “‘Snapewives’ and ‘Snapeism’: A Fiction-Based Religion within the Harry Potter Fandom”, in Religions ‎${}^{[1]}$, volume 5, number 1, MDPI, →DOI, archived from the original on 20 December 2014, pages 219–257: ↩