coddle
/ˈkɒd.əl/US/ˈkɑ.dəl/
coddle verb: to treat gently or with great care.
Verb
coddle (third-person singular simple present coddles, present participle coddling, simple past and past participle coddled)
- 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...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
- Synonyms:
- cosset
- 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
- Synonyms:
- simmer
- To exercise excessive or damaging authority in an attempt to protect. To overprotect.
Noun
coddle (plural coddles)
- An Irish dish comprising layers of roughly sliced pork sausages and bacon rashers with sliced potatoes and onions.
- An effeminate person.
coddle meaning in Hindi, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam
coddle in Hindi
- to treat gently or with great care
- दुलारना dulārnā
coddle in Urdu
- ناز کرنا, پھسلانا
coddle in Bengali
- আদরে বড় করা
coddle in Malayalam
- pamper, cosset, mollycoddle
- താലോലിക്കുക, ലാളിക്കുക, ലാലിക്കുക, ഓമനിക്കുക, പരിചരിക്കുക, അമിതമായി ലാളിക്കുക
More languagesFewer languages
- coddle in Kannada
- ಮಯ್ದಡುಪು, ಮುದ್ದುಮಾಡು, ಉಪಚರಿಸು
Examples of coddle in a sentence
- Y’all still wet behind the ears from being coddled by your mamas!
- After coddling clients, retrieving luggage, and fighting traffic, he beheld sweet, nagless me.
- Remarkably, the camels seemed to take pity on these pussies and began to protect and even coddle them.
Synonyms of coddle
Forms of coddle
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | coddles |
| present participle | coddling |
| past participle | coddled |
| past | coddled |
| Noun | |
| plural | coddles |
Origin of coddle
Probably from caudle. Compare British dialect caddle (“to coax, spoil, fondle”) and cade.
Words formed from coddle
Words that rhyme with coddle
Questions about coddle
- What does coddle mean?
- Coddle means to treat gently or with great care.
- What is coddle in Hindi?
- Coddle in Hindi is दुलारना (dulārnā). See Coddle meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is coddle?
- Coddle can be a verb or a noun.
- How do you pronounce coddle?
- Coddle is pronounced /ˈkɒd.əl/ (UK).
- What is the past tense of coddle?
- The past tense of coddle is coddled.
Words near coddle in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: coddle (page history and authors); coddle (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); coddle (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); coddle (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); coddle (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-coddle.wav.
Cite this entry: “coddle.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/coddle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.