tearjerker

plural tearjerkers · alternative tear-jerker · alternative tear jerker

1. informalAn emotionally charged film, novel, song, opera, television episode, etc., usually with one or more sad passages or ending.

   The many tear-jerkers deal with finality, with death and the end of love, with a stoicism pregnant with feeling.

   2019 January 26, Kitty Empire [pseudonym], “The Streets review – the agony and ecstasy of a great everyman”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 08 Apr 2019

   2 more examples

   Renamed in honor of the tube tearjerker, the work wondrously went on to become the most recognized theme in all of soapdom.

   1990, Wayne Jancik, The Billboard Book of One-Hit Wonders, →ISBN, page 338

   The psychologist Paul Rozin lumps tearjerkers with other examples of benign masochism like smoking, riding on roller coasters, eating hot chili peppers, and sitting in saunas.

   2003, Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works, Penguin, →ISBN

   Synonyms: cryfest, sobfest