sentimentalize

sentimental +‎ -ize

sentimentalize (third-person singular simple present sentimentalizes, present participle sentimentalizing, simple past and past participle sentimentalized)

1. (transitive) To give a sentimental feel to.

   Let us not sentimentalize things just because they are old. Getting all dewy-eyed about it because it was started in the 17th century doesn't make sense when we're talking about the town dump.

2. (intransitive) To think or act in a sentimental manner; to get sentimental.
   • 1857, Charles Kingsley, “(please specify the page)”, in Two Years Ago, volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Macmillan and Co., →OCLC:

     he learnt to sentimentalize over cathedrals and monasteries , pictures and statues , saints and kaisers

• “sentimentalize”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.