cloy
Americanverb (used with object)
verb (used without object)
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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cloysimple
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cloyssimple
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have cloyedperfect
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has cloyedperfect
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am cloyingprogressive
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are cloyingprogressive
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is cloyingprogressive
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have been cloyingperfect progressive
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has been cloyingperfect progressive
Past
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cloyedsimple
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had cloyedperfect
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was cloyingprogressive
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were cloyingprogressive
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had been cloyingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of cloy
1350–1400; aphetic variant of Middle English acloyen < Middle French enclo ( y ) er < Late Latin inclāvāre to nail in, equivalent to in- in- 2 + -clāvāre, verbal derivative of clāvus nail
Explanation
To cloy is to overwhelm someone with an excess of something that initially seemed sweet or pleasant. One piece of your favorite candy is pleasant, but the taste starts to cloy if you have too many more pieces. When someone constantly showers you with compliments, it can start to cloy, making the attention feel insincere and overbearing. The verb cloy applies to anything that becomes a bit too much to be enjoyable, from sweet treats to overpowering perfumes to too much affection. Understanding how things can cloy helps you recognize that even the nicest things can lose their charm when overdone.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
I added horseradish and hot sauce for a kick, and just enough ketchup to tint the sauce pale pink without letting it cloy.
From Seattle Times ● May 29, 2023
And whenever the cutesiness threatens to cloy, the script throws in a palate-cleansing taste of tart or bitter.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 11, 2014
What happened then, and I may have been two days in or three or five, I couldn’t really say, was that things began to cloy.
From The New Yorker ● Mar. 10, 2014
Rembrandt's honeyed dark is a draught of profundity without which the gold and silver of his fabrics would cloy, the luminous humanity of his faces fade.
From The Guardian ● Dec. 21, 2012
And I remember the smells of the hills, wild azalea and a very distant skunk and the sweet cloy of lupin and horse sweat on harness.
From "East of Eden" by John Steinbeck
The screen virtually overflows with computer-generated wizardry and cutesy flora and fauna, to a degree that cloys.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 15, 2019
Without stripping gears, she makes fast switches from explosive comedy to a sober emotionalism that never cloys.
From New York Times ● Apr. 20, 2017
In fact, if anything in “Olive and the Bitter Herbs” actually cloys, it is Olive’s own peevishness, strangely enough.
From New York Times ● Aug. 17, 2011
They run off together, but Karen soon cloys his palate.
From Time Magazine Archive
So seems it foremost of my joys,— Not ranking those that from above Assume on earth the name of Love, The feast which never ends or cloys.
From The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 Devoted to Literature and National Policy by Various
Her formula, a combination of hard masculine realism with feminine deftness and sympathy, pleased many a post-War reader cloyed with hard-boiled sentimentality.
From Time Magazine Archive
If this cloyed on Holmes, he never gave a sign; he was obviously having too much fun watching Laski's continuous intellectual floor show.
From Time Magazine Archive
He envies the young for being young and for possessing the integrity that has eroded in him, the appetite for life that has cloyed on his palate, and the courage that has been drowned.
From Time Magazine Archive
Appetites already cloyed by the night’s heat were further diminished.
From "Atonement" by Ian McEwan
I raise no howl Like yon plump ruffian with the bull-dog jowl; But the smug swells, with pleasure’s honey cloyed, May see in me the real Unemployed!
From Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, October 29, 1887 by Various
Such a cloying tone from the queen of bitterness!
From Slate ● May 6, 2026
Not cloying, not milky, not trying to be liked by everyone at the bake sale.
From Salon ● Mar. 5, 2026
Heartfelt without being cloying, this ad gets all the elements of its message of coming together right in ways that a similar ad from Spectrum couldn’t quite match.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 8, 2026
I have always found “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head,” the theme song from the movie “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” to be both musically and lyrically cloying.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 5, 2026
The eunuch's cloying tones were gone; now his voice was thin and sharp as a whip.
From "A Game of Thrones" by George R.R. Martin
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
