mawkish, a.
(ˈmɔːkɪʃ)
Also 7–8 malkish, maukish.
[f. mawk n. + -ish1.]
† 1. Inclined to sickness; without appetite. Obs.
| 1668 Dryden Enem. Love iv. i, I feel my Stomach a little maukish. 1706 Phillips (ed. Kersey), Mawkish, sick at Stomack, squeamish. a 1745 Swift Progr. Marriage 60 The dean who us'd to dine at one, Is maukish, and his stomach gone. 1755 Connoisseur No. 82 (1774) III. 83 He constantly goes senseless to bed, and rises maukish in the morning. 1836 T. Hook G. Gurney II. 59 The feverish, heated, mawkish, wretched state in which I was. |
† b. Having no inclination to. Obs.
| 1679 Dryden Troil. & Cress. iv. ii, Who knows but rest may cool their brains, and make them rise mawkish to mischief upon consideration? |
2. Having a nauseating taste; now, having a faint, sickly flavour with little definite taste.
| a 1697 Aubrey Nat. Hist. Surrey (1719) I. 215 The medicated Springs here..have a maukish Taste. a 1700 B. E. Dict. Cant. Crew, Wallowish, a malkish, ill Taste. a 1719 Addison Virg. Georg. iv. 117 Others look loathsom and diseas'd with sloth, Like a faint traveller whose dusty mouth Grows dry with heat, and spits a maukish froth. 1728 Pope Dunc. iii. 171 Like thine inspirer, Beer,..So sweetly mawkish, and so smoothly dull. 1786 tr. Beckford's Vathek (1868) 89 He regarded the ragouts of his other wives as entirely maukish. 1803 Med. Jrnl. IX. 492 It is without smell, has a maukish taste, and has but little consistence. 1872 Cooper's Dict. Pract. Surg. II. 643 Pus has a sweetish, mawkish taste. |
3. fig. Feebly sentimental; imbued with sickly or false sentiment; lacking in robustness.
| 1702 Eng. Theophrast. 110 It is one of the most nauseous maukish mortifications under the Sun..to have to do with a punctual finical fop. 1776 Foote Bankrupt i. Wks. 1799 II. 104 His mind is so maukish, that should he be confronted with Lydia, he would betray our whole plot in an instant. 1818 Keats Lett. Wks. 1889 III. 141, I hate a mawkish popularity. 1819 Metropolis I. 47 The mawkish tepidity of his manner. 1885 Spectator 8 Aug. 1048/2 The mawkish and unreal sentiment which constituted Mr. Dickens's chief fault. 1889 D. Hannay Capt. Marryat viii. 125 It [Masterman Ready] is pathetic, and yet it is not mawkish. |
† 4. slang. Slatternly. Obs. rare—0.
| 1725 New Cant. Dict., Mawkish, Slatternly. |