coddle

present singular third person coddles · participle present coddling · participle past coddled · past coddled

1. transitiveTo treat gently or with great care.

   1 more example

   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?

   1854, Arthur Pendennis [pseudonym; William Makepeace Thackeray], The Newcomes: Memoirs of a Most Respectable Family, volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], →OCLC

   Synonyms: cosset

2. transitiveTo cook slowly in hot water that is below the boiling point.

   a coddled egg

   1 more example

   It [the guava fruit] bakes as well as a Pear, and it may be coddled, and it makes good Pies.

   1697, William Dampier, A New Voyage Round the World. […], London: […] James Knapton, […], →OCLC, page 222

   Synonyms: simmer

3. transitiveTo exercise excessive or damaging authority in an attempt to protect. To overprotect.

plural coddles

1. An Irish dish comprising layers of roughly sliced pork sausages and bacon rashers with sliced potatoes and onions.
2. archaicAn effeminate person.