coddle meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

coddle

verb

UK /ˈkɒd.əl/ · US /ˈkɑ.dəl/

Etymology Probably from caudle. Compare British dialect caddle (“to coax, spoil, fondle”) and cade.

To treat gently or with great care.

How many of our English princes have been coddled at home by their fond papas and mammas, walled up in inaccessible castles, with a tutor and a library, guarded by cordons of sentinels, sermoners, old aunts, old women from the world without, and have nevertheless escaped from all these guardians, and astonished the world by their extravagance and their frolics?1854, Arthur Pendennis [pseudonym; William Makepeace Thackeray], The Newcomes: Memoirs of a Most Respectable Family, volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], →OCLC:

To cook slowly in hot water that is below the boiling point.

a coddled egg
It [the guava fruit] bakes as well as a Pear, and it may be coddled, and it makes good Pies.1697, William Dampier, A New Voyage Round the World. […], London: […] James Knapton, […], →OCLC, page 222:

To exercise excessive or damaging authority in an attempt to protect. To overprotect.

Synonyms: cosset, pamper, posset, spoil, simmer
Derived terms: coddled egg, coddler, coddlesome, coddlingly, mollycoddle, overcoddle
Related terms: scald

noun

Etymology Probably from caudle. Compare British dialect caddle (“to coax, spoil, fondle”) and cade.

An Irish dish comprising layers of roughly sliced pork sausages and bacon rashers with sliced potatoes and onions.

Archaic An effeminate person.