Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- intransitive verb To be overprotective and indulgent toward. synonym: pamper.
- noun A person, especially a man or a boy, who is pampered and overprotected.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun One who lacks resolution, energy, or hardihood; an effeminate man: used in derision or contempt.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun a pampered darling; an effeminate man; a milksop.
- transitive verb To pamper or coddle.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A person, especially a man or a boy, who is
pampered andoverprotected . - verb transitive To be overprotective and indulgent toward; to
pamper .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a pampered darling; an effeminate man
- verb treat with excessive indulgence
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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"Why, sir," said Jupp, scratching his head reflectively -- he had left his cap under the elm-tree on top of the hill, where he had taken it off when he set about building the fire for the kettle -- "a mollycoddle is a sort of chap as always wraps hisself up keerfully for fear the wind should blow upon him and hurt his complexion."
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Taft's predecessor, Teddy Roosevelt, clearly was not a big fan, lumping baseball in with what he called "mollycoddle" games.
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Perhaps the sight of all those happy lads running and jumping and throwing weights had made him feel more than ever his own narrow, confined life, kept out of the society of all the other boys after school hours, and made to play the part of a "mollycoddle," as
The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path Donald Ferguson
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The pacifist "mollycoddle," as Theodore Roosevelt dubbed him in his
New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 Various
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If he repudiated these ideas, then Jonas would denounce him as a "mollycoddle," a "pink tea Socialist," a "labor faker."
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Parents have made a conscious decision to "mollycoddle" their children because of concerns that Britain has become more hostile to young people over the last 40 years, the research indicates.
Telegraph.co.uk: news, business, sport, the Daily Telegraph newspaper, Sunday Telegraph 2010
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But the code of silence is preserved by people who blame victims and mollycoddle offenders.
My Report report 2009
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One can understand that companies would make every effort to placate and mollycoddle customers in an effort to drive up sales - wherein being “customer led” and having “customer focus” was less of a genuine corporate belief, but rather a consumerist tactic.
Customer Service My Arse « POLICE INSPECTOR BLOG Inspector Gadget 2009
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HSBC's vast deposit base historically has been both a blessing and a curse: a blessing because it used to enable the bank to generate buckets of cash, pay chunky dividends, mollycoddle staff and ignore shareholders; a curse because it also led the bank over the past decade into an ill-judged international expansion, culminating in the $15 billion acquisition of Household Finance, among the worst financial-services transactions in recent history.
Gulliver's Travails at HSBC Simon Nixon 2011
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"These are not people you can mollycoddle," he said.
The Troubled Heart of Pakistan Matthew Kaminski 2011
whichbe commented on the word mollycoddle
Is Molly giving or receiving?
November 8, 2008
jmjarmstrong commented on the word mollycoddle
JM has always been overprotective and indulgent toward the nice little word 'mollycoddle'.
February 1, 2009
nahiku888 commented on the word mollycoddle
He used it! he used it! have not heard ANYONE use this words in ages - decades even - and today CNN had video of Prince William saying he was not expecting ".....to be mollycoddled"
June 20, 2009
bilby commented on the word mollycoddle
Same context: tyrannosaur, near-unanimous, phiz, trustfulness, paleface, nightbird, 42-day, falter.
February 1, 2013