dandle

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   to move a baby or small child playfully up and down in one's arms or on one's knee

   She dandled the laughing toddler on her knee.

2. 2
   verb

   to treat someone with excessive fondness or indulgence

   The court dandled the young favorite until he expected every request to be granted.

Recorded in English from the sixteenth century and probably related to Germanic and French words for swinging, swaying, or trifling. Its physical sense of bouncing a child gave rise to the figurative sense of pampering someone.

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