codle

Verb

coddle (third-person singular simple present coddles, present participle coddling, simple past and past participle coddled)

1. (transitive) 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

2. (transitive) To cook slowly in hot water that is below the boiling point.
   • a coddled egg

   Synonyms:

   simmer

3. (transitive) To exercise excessive or damaging authority in an attempt to protect. To overprotect.

See all 5 meanings of coddle