Literary notes about Cloying (AI summary)
The term cloying is often employed in literature to evoke an excess that shifts from delight to repulsion. Frequently attached to descriptions of aromas and flavors—such as a perfume that saturates the air with an almost visible cloud of saccharine notes ([1], [2], [3])—it underscores how an appealing trait, when overabundant, becomes nauseating. At times the word is used metaphorically to critique overly sentimental or ornate rhetoric; a character’s charm or a narrative’s detail may be described as cloying when its sweetness or fervor overwhelms its intended effect ([4], [5]). In both sensory and emotional descriptions, cloying captures the fine line between beauty and excess, suggesting that too much of something inherently good can ultimately undermine its appeal ([6], [7]).
- Steeped in the full moon, it sent out its cloying perfume like a visible cloud; her white nightgown glistened ghostlike through the leaves.
— from While Caroline Was Growing by Josephine Daskam Bacon - Sweet and cloying, the odor grew stronger.
— from Voyage To Eternity by Stephen Marlowe - A cloying smell of plasticine pervaded the place.
— from The Restless Sex by Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers - To sing the same tune, as the saying is, is in everything cloying and offensive; but men are generally pleased with variety.
— from Familiar QuotationsA Collection of Passages, Phrases, and Proverbs Traced toTheir Sources in Ancient and Modern Literature - It was Jo, the clean-minded and simple-hearted, in revolt against the cloying luxury with which he had surrounded himself.
— from The Best Short Stories of 1917, and the Yearbook of the American Short Story - And while English toilet waters are cloying and sweet, violets and gilliflowers, this aroma is light and delicate.
— from The Moghul by Thomas Hoover - The odor of rose and honeysuckle was drowned in the heavy cloying sweetness of the pendant masses of locust bloom.
— from The Old Dominion by Mary Johnston
