dandles

Verb

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

1. (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
2. (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...
3. (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 […]...

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