dandle

/ˈdændəl/

dandle verb: to move up and down on one's knee or in one's arms, in affectionate play, usually said of a child.

Verb

dandle (third-person singular simple present dandles, present participle dandling, simple past and past participle dandled)

(transitive) To move up and down on one's knee or in one's arms, in affectionate play, usually said of a child.
- the young mother sat [the infant] upright in her lap, and[…]dandled it with a gloomy indifference.1891, Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urbervilles
- You will nurse and be carried on her arm and dandled on her knees.1978, Bible, New International Version, Isaiah 66:12
(transitive) To treat with fondness or affection, as if a child; to pet.
- [T]hey have put me in a silk night-gown and gaudy fool's cap, and make me now and then stand in the window with it. I am ashamed to be dandled thus, and cannot look in the glass without blushing to see myself turned into such a pretty little master.1711 July 31 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison; Richard Steele et al.], “FRIDAY, July 21, 1711”, in The Spectator, number 113; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New...
- The book, thus dandled into popularity by bishops and good ladies, contained many pieces of nursery eloquence.1807 April, Francis Jeffrey, “Forbe's Life of Dr. Beattie”, in The Edinburgh Review
(obsolete, transitive) To play with; to wheedle.
- captaines, who notwithstanding that they are specially imployed to make peace thorough strong execution of warre, yet they doe so dandle their doings, and dallie in the service to them committed1596 (date written; published 1633), Edmund Spenser, A Vewe of the Present State of Irelande […], Dublin: […] Societie of Stationers, […], →OCLC; republished as A View of the State of Ireland […]...

Noun

dandle (plural dandles)

(Rhode Island) A teeter-totter; a seesaw.

dandle meaning in Urdu, Malayalam and Kannada

dandle in Malayalam

dance, bounce, jiggle: തുള്ളിക്കുക, കളിപ്പിക്കുക, നൃത്തം ചെയ്യിക്കുക, സഞ്ചലിപ്പിക്കുക, ചാഞ്ചാടിക്കുക, തുള്ളിച്ചാടിക്കുക

Synonyms of dandle

fondle

Forms of dandle

Verb
third-person singular present	dandles
present participle	dandling
past participle	dandled
past	dandled
Noun
plural	dandles

Origin of dandle

Compare Scots dandill (“to dander; go about idly; move uncertainly; trifle”), English dialectal dander (“to wander about; talk incoherently; rave”), Middle Dutch dantinnen (“to trifle”) (from French dandiner (“to swing; waddle”)), German dändeln, tändeln (“to trifle, dandle”), Middle Dutch and Provincial German danten (“to do foolish things; trifle”), German Tand (“trifle, prattle”).

Words formed from dandle

Phrases with dandle

dandle boards

Words that rhyme with dandle

8 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about dandle

What does dandle mean?: Dandle means to move up and down on one's knee or in one's arms, in affectionate play, usually said of a child.
What is dandle in Urdu?: Dandle in Urdu is کھلانا, کدانا. See Dandle meaning in Urdu.
What part of speech is dandle?: Dandle can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce dandle?: Dandle is pronounced /ˈdændəl/ (UK).
What is the past tense of dandle?: The past tense of dandle is dandled.

Words near dandle in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: dandle (page history and authors); dandle (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); dandle (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); dandle (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-dandle.wav.

Cite this entry: “dandle.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dandle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.