# Looking for a word
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-word/446897
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [April 25, 2008, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-word/446897 "2008-04-25T21:08:28Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)
#### Post date: [April 25, 2008, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-word/446897/1 "2008-04-25T21:08:28Z")
I feel like there is a word–a single word, not a phrase–that means something like “a thing that is ridiculously sentimental, gratuitous with all the silly crying.”
Maybe “Glurge” is what I’m thinking of, but I feel like there’s a different, less recent word for this kind of thing.
I _thought_ it was “schlock” but it turns out that means “shoddy.” I think I may have misused this term before. I wonder who I confused.
-FrL-
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### Author:  [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)
#### Post date: [April 25, 2008, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-word/446897/2 "2008-04-25T21:15:37Z")
Are you sure it was a… natural noun, so to speak? It’s easy to consider words such as, say, “mawkishness”, “soppiness”, or “saccharinity”.
Perhaps “slush” is what you want?
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### Author:  [@Duhkecco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duhkecco)
#### Post date: [April 25, 2008, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-word/446897/3 "2008-04-25T21:15:42Z")
Schmaltz?
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### Author:  [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)
#### Post date: [April 25, 2008, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-word/446897/4 "2008-04-25T21:16:45Z")
Oh, yes, that’s a very good one. I endorse that now.
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### Author:  [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)
#### Post date: [April 25, 2008, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-word/446897/5 "2008-04-25T21:27:19Z")
Mushy? As in “that’s so mushy it’s sickening”
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### Author:  [@postcards](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/postcards)
#### Post date: [April 25, 2008, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-word/446897/6 "2008-04-25T21:29:36Z")
Not so ‘with all the silly crying’, but **nostalgic**?
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### Author:  [@Lama\_Pacos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lama_Pacos)
#### Post date: [April 25, 2008, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-word/446897/7 "2008-04-25T21:30:18Z")
Maudlin?
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### Author:  [@WF\_Tomba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WF_Tomba)
#### Post date: [April 25, 2008, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-word/446897/8 "2008-04-25T21:33:08Z")
I second _maudlin_, although it is an adjective.
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### Author:  [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)
#### Post date: [April 25, 2008, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-word/446897/9 "2008-04-25T21:55:53Z")
[QUOTE=Abirode]
Schmaltz?
[/QUOTE]
Schmaltz! That’s it!
That’s why I thought “schlock.”
Thanks!
-FrL-
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### Author:  [@Duhkecco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duhkecco)
#### Post date: [April 25, 2008, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-word/446897/10 "2008-04-25T22:09:09Z")
Maybe if your name was Frymaltz … 😃
Anyway, I figured it was another Yiddish word.
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### Author:  [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)
#### Post date: [April 25, 2008, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-word/446897/11 "2008-04-25T22:11:12Z")
Isn’t “schmaltz” literally chicken fat, like the fat on top of a can of chicken noodle soup when you open it?
I never could figure out how the same word got those two meanings.
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### Author:  [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)
#### Post date: [April 25, 2008, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-word/446897/12 "2008-04-25T22:17:57Z")
[QUOTE=WhyNot]
Isn’t “schmaltz” literally chicken fat, like the fat on top of a can of chicken noodle soup when you open it?
[/QUOTE]
Yes. Schmaltz literally means chicken fat. Schmaltzy is the word that the OP seeks which comes from the word schmaltz. I have no idea how one came from the other.
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### Author:  [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)
#### Post date: [April 25, 2008, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-word/446897/13 "2008-04-25T22:23:53Z")
Same as “corny” and “cheesy”, probably.
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### Author:  [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2008, 11:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-word/446897/14 "2008-04-26T11:11:32Z")
[QUOTE=hajario]
Yes. Schmaltz literally means chicken fat. Schmaltzy is the word that the OP seeks which comes from the word schmaltz. I have no idea how one came from the other.
[/QUOTE]
I think it’s because it’s used to thicken food.
It’s oily and tasty and while it helps food go down smoother you’ll wake up the next morning with a severe case of heartburn.
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### Author:  [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2008, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-word/446897/15 "2008-04-26T11:57:33Z")
[Word Maven’s](http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=20010910) on Schmaltz.
> [@](#):
>
> The figurative use of schmaltz (‘mawkishness, oversentimentality’) and its derivative, schmaltzy, is not found in Yiddish but is rather an American English innovation on the Yiddish loanword. The parallel to this innovation is the word goo and its derivative gooey: both goo and schmaltz are thick, sticky, oily substances, and figuratively both mean ‘maudlin or mawkish sentimentality’. Semantically, both words compare something (music, writings, etc.) dripping with thick sentimentality to the drippings of a fatty or greasy substance.
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### Author:  [@lobotomyboy63](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lobotomyboy63)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2008, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-word/446897/16 "2008-04-26T12:48:59Z")
I offer “treacle”
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### Author:  [@K364](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/K364)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2008, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-word/446897/17 "2008-04-26T14:14:20Z")
I also thought of Maudlin: “tearfully or weakly emotional; foolishly sentimental”
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### Author:  [@Ronald\_C.Semone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ronald_C.Semone)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2008, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-word/446897/18 "2008-04-26T15:58:32Z")
Bathos
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### Author:  [@capybara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/capybara)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2008, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-word/446897/19 "2008-04-26T16:25:29Z")
[QUOTE=Khadaji]
[Word Maven’s](http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=20010910) on Schmaltz.
[/QUOTE]
Hmm. I’m not sure about this-- the word schmalzig is in use in German for, in addition to just “fatty”, the same meaning of treacly, sappy, maudlin, cheesy, kitschy, etc.
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### Author:  [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2008, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-word/446897/20 "2008-04-26T16:36:23Z")
cloying
–adjective 1. causing or tending to cause disgust or aversion through excess: a perfume of cloying sweetness.
2. **overly ingratiating or sentimental.**
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