dote
/dəʊt/US/doʊt/
dote verb: to be weakly or foolishly fond of somebody.
Verb (1)
dote (third-person singular simple present dotes, present participle doting, simple past and past participle doted)
- To be weakly or foolishly fond of somebody.
- Little Bill's parents just keep doting on him.
- '[…] So altered — so faded — worn down by acute suffering of every kind! hardly could I believe the melancholy and sickly figure before me, to be the remains of the lovely, blooming, healthful girl, on whom I had once doated […]'1811, Jane Austen, chapter 31, in Sense and Sensibility
- To act in a foolish manner; to be senile.
- He survived the use of his reason, grew infatuated, and doted long before he died.1692–1717, Robert South, “Ill-disposed Affections […] ”, in Twelve Sermons Preached upon Several Occasions, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London
- Time has made you dote, and vainly tell / Of arms imagined in your lonely cell.1697, Virgil, “(please specify the book number)”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC
- To rot, decay.
Noun (1)
dote (countable and uncountable, plural dotes)
- A darling, a cutie.
- But to be sure baby Boardman was as good as gold, a perfect little dote in his new fancy bib.1922 February 2, James Joyce, “[13]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC
- An imbecile; a dotard.
- How did his death-bed make him a doate!1630, Tinker of Turvey
- Synonyms:
- dobby
- Decay in a tree.
Noun (2)
dote (plural dotes)
Verb (2)
dote (third-person singular simple present dotes, present participle doting, simple past and past participle doted)
dote meaning in Urdu, Bengali, Malayalam and Kannada
dote in Urdu
- لٹو ہونا, سٹھیانا
dote in Bengali
- অত্যধিক ভালোবাসা, আদর দেওয়া, অন্ধভাবে অনুরক্ত হওয়া
dote in Malayalam
- വാർദ്ധക്യത്തിൽ ബുദ്ധി മന്ദിക്കുക, മഠയത്തരം പ്രവർത്തിക്കുക, ലാളിക്കുക
dote in Kannada
- ಮುದ್ದುಮಾಡು, ಅತಿ ಮುದ್ದು ಮಾಡು, ಅಂಧ ವ್ಯಾಮೋಹ ಹೊಂದು, ಅತಿ ಪ್ರೀತಿ ತೋರು, ಕಣ್ಣಿನ ಬೊಂಬೆಯಂತೆ ಉಪಚರಿಸು
Examples of dote in a sentence
- Entangled in each other like doting octopi, sweethearts are seizing the day, the hour, the magic minute.
- Butterfly taxonomists, however, like the triple-barrelled name approach and dote on subspecies.
- Doting on some dogs when home creates a dog that may overmiss people when left alone.
Synonyms of dote
Forms of dote
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | dotes |
| present participle | doting |
| past participle | doted |
| past | doted |
| alternative form (obsolete) | doat |
| Noun | |
| plural | dotes |
Origin of dote
The verb is derived from Middle English doten, from Middle Low German doten (“to be foolish”) or Middle Dutch doten (“to be silly”). Doublet of doit (Scottish English). The noun in the sense of "imbecile" is derived from Middle English dote (“simpleton”), itself from doten (see above). The noun in the sense of "darling" and "decay" is derived from the modern verb.
From Middle English dote (“endowment”) (c. 1450), from Middle French dote (modern dot), from Latin dos.
From Middle French doter, Latin dōtāre.
Words formed from dote
Words that rhyme with dote
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- oat
- quote
- connote
- groat
- remote
- scrote
- tote
- bote
- capote
- denote
- devote
- mote
- smote
- solar boat
- undercoat
- cote
- demote
- gloat
- pote
- refloat
- rote
- undernote
- wrote
- yote
- blót
- confidence vote
- disease boat
- end of quote
- end quote
- entrecôte
- flote
- frote
- ignote
- isot
- lote
- loth
- misquote
- moth
- phot
- recoat
- rewrote
- shoat
- stoat
- swagger coat
- troat
- two hundred fifty-sixth note
- underquote
- underwrote
Questions about dote
- What does dote mean?
- Dote means to be weakly or foolishly fond of somebody.
- What is dote in Urdu?
- Dote in Urdu is لٹو ہونا, سٹھیانا. See Dote meaning in Urdu.
- What part of speech is dote?
- Dote can be a verb or a noun.
- How do you pronounce dote?
- Dote is pronounced /dəʊt/ (UK).
- What is the past tense of dote?
- The past tense of dote is doted.
Words near dote in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: dote (page history and authors); dote (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); Dote (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); dote (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); dote (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:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-dote.wav.
Cite this entry: “dote.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dote. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.