'anti-sentimentality' originates from English compounds formed from the prefix 'anti-' (from Greek 'anti' meaning 'against') and 'sentimentality' (from French 'sentimentalité' / 'sentiment' ultimately from Latin 'sentire' meaning 'to feel'), where 'anti-' meant 'against' and 'sentire' meant 'to feel'.

'anti-sentimentality' developed in modern English by combining the prefix 'anti-' with the noun 'sentimentality' (itself from French 'sentimentalité' and Latin 'sentire'); 'sentimentality' came into English usage in the 18th–19th centuries and the compound form arose as a descriptive term in later 19th–20th century prose and criticism.

Initially, 'sentimentality' referred broadly to matters of feeling ('to feel'), but over time it acquired the specific sense of excessive or mawkish feeling; 'anti-sentimentality' therefore evolved to mean opposition to that excess.