Definition of "mawkish"

Some of Mr. Williams’s performances were criticized for a mawkish sentimentality, like “Patch Adams,” a 1998 film that once again cast him as a good-hearted doctor, and “Bicentennial Man,” a 1999 science-fiction feature in which he played an android.

2014 August 11, Dave Itzkoff, “Robin Williams, Oscar-Winning Comedian, Dies at 63 in Suspected Suicide”, in New York Times‎

I found [Christoph] Buchel’s appropriation of the boat in which so many migrants lost their lives a vile and mawkish spectacle in the context of the biennale.

2019 May 12, Adrian Searle, “Mawkish monuments and the beach from hell: our verdict on the Venice Biennale”, in The Guardian‎

The tabloids branded him James Hewitt forevermore as the “love rat,” and Pasternak was excoriated for peddling mawkish fantasy.(Adapted from the book The Palace Papers, published 2022 by Penguin Books.)

April 5 2022, Tina Brown, “How Princess Diana’s Dance With the Media Impacted William and Harry”, in Vanity Fair‎