A Word, Please: Maudlin

We tend to dismiss maudlin as cheap, sloppy sentimentality—the sort that arrives with the last verse of a sad song or the bottom of a pint. But long before sixteenth-century tavern-goers were weeping into their ale, the word was a revered proper name carried from the Sea of Galilee into medieval church plays. Here is how holy grief tumbled down through centuries of taprooms to become our most tear-stained adjective.