We need a term for this in English!
Empalagar is a Spanish verb that describes the sensation of feeling sick or queezy from something being too sweet. It’s how you feel after eating something unbearably sweet, or eating too many sweets, or thinking about such things. For example, this morning I put too much sweetened creamer on my coffee and now I feel empalagada (the participle of the verb) and can’t bear the idea of eating anything else sweet. I feel this sensation in the back of my throat.
Empalagar is a reflexive verb, it describes how something sweet makes you feel, either in general or at a particular time: “Dulce de leche me empalaga,” or “I put too much syrup on my pancakes y me empalagué“.
Empalagar can sometimes be translated as cloying in English: something which is cloyingly sweet me empalagaría (would make me feel sick), but while as the verb to cloy is not reflexive it (you wouldn’t say “the cake cloyed me”) it doesn’t work it most instances. I don’t think I’ve even heard anyone say “I feel cloyed.”
“Sicken” is too general and often has a different and sometimes more severe meaning. Indeed, the more that I write about this, the closer that I am to being sick rather than just empalagada.
I wish there was a verb that perfectly described this sensation in English, but as there isn’t, I’ve decided that going forward I’ll just use the Spanish word, and refer to this post when I do.
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