dote.
To be weakly or foolishly fond of somebody.
Meaning & usage
To be weakly or foolishly fond of somebody.
Little Bill's parents just keep doting on him.
To act in a foolish manner; to be senile.
To rot, decay.
Where this word comes from
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.
A darling, a cutie.
An imbecile; a dotard.
Decay in a tree.
Where this word comes from
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.
Dowry.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English dote (“endowment”) (c. 1450), from Middle French dote (modern dot), from Latin dos.
To endow, donate.
Where this word comes from
From Middle French doter, Latin dōtāre.
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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.