cloy
Americanverb (used with object)
verb (used without object)
verb
Other Word Forms
- overcloy verb (used with object)
- uncloyed adjective
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
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.
In its all-too-human view of life, this is, entertainingly, whatever the opposite of a cloying graduation speech is.
From Los Angeles Times
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
Called Agnes here, as she was in her father’s will, she is played by Jessie Buckley in a performance that tips over the edge from heartfelt into cloying, as does the film.
The claim is sometime made that funerals are about the living, but that reduces the event to a group therapy session, overlaid with the cloying odor of lilies and gladioli.
The script leans so heavily into cloying emotionality that, in its climax, everyone dissolves into tears.
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.
