the.com/cloying
when sweetness overstays its welcome and your tongue files a restraining order
means So excessively sweet, sentimental, or pleasing that it becomes sickening rather than enjoyable.
from From an obsolete sense of the verb 'cloy,' meaning to clog, overfill, or glut. That verb traces back through Middle English to Old French 'encloer,' 'to drive a nail in' (and so to obstruct or lame a horse by pricking it with a nail), from Latin 'clavus,' a nail. The path runs from a literal nail jammed where it shouldn't be, to being stuffed and stuck, to the modern feeling of sweetness so dense it nails your appetite shut.
- origin
- from Old French 'encloer,' to nail a horse's hoof
- once meant
- to clog or block, not sicken with sweetness
- sensory limit
- taste buds tire fast on sustained sugar signals
- in perfume
- vanilla and amber are top cloying offenders
- emotional use
- describes affection too thick to breathe through
british puddings — suet-heavy desserts like spotted dick and jam roly-poly that coat the mouth with sugar and fat
hallmark greeting cards — mass-produced cards with syrupy sentiment that dominated us greeting card sales since the 1950s
disney princess songs — orchestral ballads like 'so this is love' (cinderella, 1950) known for overwrought romantic schmaltz