mollycoddle

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asked Teddy inquiringly, looking up at him 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 Oh!"

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Definitions (7)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. transitive verb To be overprotective and indulgent toward. See Synonyms at pamper.
  2. noun A person, especially a man or a boy, who is pampered and overprotected.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (1)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (2)

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Examples (50)

  • If the seller doesn't underhumble responsibility for your querying then don't buy anygoods from him or her. settle conceive ofer and branded infant clothes can go bankrupt flammability peril tests so arrogate mollycoddle clothes shopping seriously. —  blogTO
  • With such an alternative staring us in the face very few tears would be shed by Americans, of any color, if both the Hohenzollerns and the Hapsburgs, with all their belongings, should be wiped off the face of the earth War and Non-Resistance The pacifist "mollycoddle," as Theodore Roosevelt dubbed him in his San Francisco Exposition speech, finds expression in these words of Bertrand Russell in the August number of the Atlantic Monthly All these three motives for armaments--cowardice, love of dominion, and lust for blood--are no longer ineradicable in civilized human nature. —  New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915
  • I am sure I don't want to make a mollycoddle, as you call it, of him. —  Held Fast For England A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83)
  • Captain Cob," they chorused And here," I cried passionately, "after fighting all these years and making myself miserable so as to do exactly what you all taught me, now that there is a chance of showing that I know my lesson and have done well, you all treat me like a mollycoddle, and say to me by your looks: `you're a poor cowardly little cub; go home to your mother and be nursed Have you done with the soap?" —  Patience Wins War in the Works
  • To which Steve cheerfully made answer that even a mollycoddle could be decent at times Brimfield played Canterbury High School on a Wednesday afternoon in early October and had a good deal of a scare. —  Left End Edwards
 

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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

83-18 ·  beseeching ·  preschooler ·  skulking ·  alter-ego ·  paleface ·  night-bird ·  tyrannosaur ·  eaglet ·  cretur ·  cloture ·  write-in
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. molly, milksop (from Molly, nickname for Mary) + coddle.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. Also mollcoddle; from Molly, Moll, + coddle.
 

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/ˈmɑlɪkɑdl/
by American Heritage

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