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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

coddle.

To treat gently or with great care.

6 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/ˈkɒd.əl/UK/ˈkɑ.dəl/US/ˈkɔd.əl/Australia
  1. To treat gently or with great care.

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

    transitive
    a coddled egg
  3. To exercise excessive or damaging authority in an attempt to protect. To overprotect.

    transitive
Where this word comes from

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

noun/ˈkɒd.əl/UK/ˈkɑ.dəl/US/ˈkɔd.əl/Australia
  1. An Irish dish comprising layers of roughly sliced pork sausages and bacon rashers with sliced potatoes and onions.

  2. An effeminate person.

    archaic
Where this word comes from

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

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.