Elysa Gardner 
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We won’t bore you with the sappy tale behind the word cloying, because happily, there isn’t one. That’s because its history isn’t sweet, but rather tough as nails. Cloying comes from the verb cloy, which had among its earliest uses the meaning (to quote the Oxford English Dictionary) “to render [a gun] useless by driving a spike or plug into the touch-hole.” This ultra-specific sense of clogging and stuffing arose alongside both broader and figurative ones, including “to fill or choke up,” and cloy has since come to mean “to supply or indulge to excess.” Accordingly, cloying implies a nauseating amount of something that might be pleasing in smaller doses, especially both literal and metaphorical sweetness.
Synonyms
Examples of cloying in a Sentence
Tasha Tsiaperas, Axios, 4 Oct. 2024
Although more intricate and worked than previous collections, the pieces reflect a coherent design evolution that results in an innovative aesthetic that’s never cloying.
—Kate Matthams, Forbes, 13 Sep. 2024
The Christmas scent drew complaints for its cloying cinnamon notes.
—Jake Offenhartz, The New Yorker, 26 Aug. 2024
It’s sweetened with stevia but doesn’t have any of that bitter, cloying aftertaste.
—Amanda Shapiro, Bon Appétit, 16 July 2024
See all Example Sentences for cloying 
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'cloying.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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“Cloying.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cloying. Accessed 1 Nov. 2024.
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