Dote
noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 A darling, a cutie. Ireland, countable
"But to be sure baby was as good as gold, a perfect little dote in his new fancy bib."
- 2 Dowry. obsolete
- 3 An imbecile; a dotard. countable, obsolete
"How did his death-bed make him a doate!"
- 4 Decay in a tree. rare, uncountable
- 1 To be weakly or foolishly fond of somebody. intransitive, stative, usually, with-on
"Little Bill's parents just keep doting on him."
- 2 To endow, donate. obsolete, transitive
- 3 shower with love; show excessive affection for wordnet
- 4 To act in a foolish manner; to be senile. archaic, intransitive
"He survived the use of his reason, grew infatuated, and doted long before he died."
- 5 be foolish or senile due to old age wordnet
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- 6 To rot, decay. intransitive, obsolete, rare
Example
More examples"In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes, for they in thee a thousand errors note, but ’tis my heart that loves what they despise, who in despite of view is pleased to dote."
Etymology
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.
Related phrases
More for "dote"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.