cloy
Americanverb (used with object)
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cloys,
present (3rd person singular)
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cloyed,
past participle, past
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cloying
present participle
verb (used without object)
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cloys,
present (3rd person singular)
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cloyed,
past participle, past
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cloying
present participle
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
The gorgeous lushness of it all began to cloy a bit as the evening wore on, and a bit more contrast might have been welcome.
From The Guardian ● Aug. 4, 2011
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
However, the script is poorly constructed, much of the comedy seems forced, and the picture's mooning romanticism finally cloys.
From Time Magazine Archive
Fat love, and too much fulsome, me annoys, Even as sweet meat a glutted stomach cloys.
From The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) by A. H. (Arthur Henry) Bullen
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
This marring clause of the Count and Marianna is hardly to be excused on the ground of dramatic necessity, since other themes of this nature are not cloyed by baser earth.
From The Works of Honor? de Balzac About Catherine de' Medici, Seraphita and Other Stories by Honor? de Balzac
Toiling around the clock, haggard Indonesian firefighters on Borneo island cannot keep up with the blazes devouring landscapes and shrouding communities in a cloying haze.
From Barron's ● Sep. 6, 2026
The salt sharpens the citrus and makes the sweetness feel brighter rather than cloying.
From Salon ● May 28, 2026
Such a cloying tone from the queen of bitterness!
From Slate ● May 6, 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
Combined with our exertion, the cloying heat was almost unbearable.
From "A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson
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.
