Coddle

//ˈkɑ.dəl// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    An Irish dish comprising layers of roughly sliced pork sausages and bacon rashers with sliced potatoes and onions.
  2. 2
    An effeminate person. archaic
Verb
  1. 1
    To treat gently or with great care. transitive

    "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, and astonished the world by their extravagance and their frolics?"

  2. 2
    cook in nearly boiling water wordnet
  3. 3
    To cook slowly in hot water that is below the boiling point. transitive

    "a coddled egg"

  4. 4
    treat with excessive indulgence wordnet
  5. 5
    To exercise excessive or damaging authority in an attempt to protect. To overprotect. transitive

Synonyms

All synonyms
cossetcossetmollycoddlepamperpampersimmer

Example

More examples

"You shouldn't coddle her so much. She needs to learn to be independent."

Etymology

Probably from caudle. Compare British dialect caddle (“to coax, spoil, fondle”) and cade.

Related phrases

coddled eggboiling point

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.