coddle
coddle Lexical Profile
coddle Game Scores & Validity
• verb
To treat someone in an indulgent, overprotective, or excessively solicitous way.
"Critics argued that the coach tended to coddle the star players instead of holding them accountable for their mistakes."
To cook food (especially eggs or fruit) slowly and gently in water kept just below the boiling point.
"To prepare the Caesar salad dressing, first coddle the egg in simmering water for exactly one minute."
• noun
Irish A traditional Irish dish, particularly associated with Dublin, consisting of layers of pork sausages, bacon, potatoes, and onions slow-cooked together in broth.
"On cold winter evenings in Dublin, her grandmother always kept a warm pot of coddle simmering on the stove."
• Rhymes for coddle
Word Origin & Etymology
First recorded in the late 16th century in the culinary sense 'to boil gently', probably as a dialectal variant of 'caudle' (a warm, comforting drink for invalids), ultimately from Latin calidum ('warm'). The figurative sense of treating someone with excessive indulgence developed in the early 19th century.