Word of the Day:

: disgusting or distasteful by reason of excess; also : excessively sweet or sentimental

Although Kelsey usually likes romantic novels, she found this one so cloying that she couldn’t even finish it.

More example sentences

"Can one desire too much of a good thing?" asks Rosalind in William Shakespeare's play As You Like It. "Cloying" suggests that you can, because it implies a repugnant excess of something that might be pleasing in smaller doses. An exploration into the history of "cloying," however, leads us eventually to roots that are neither sweet nor excessive, but rather tough as nails. "Cloying" derives from the verb "cloy," which now means "to supply or indulge to excess," but which once meant "to clog" and earlier "to prick a horse with a nail in shoeing." "Cloy" itself traces via Middle English to Anglo-French "encloer" (which also meant "to prick a horse with a nail in shoeing") and ultimately to the Latin "clavus," meaning "nail."