▪ I. coddle, v.1
(ˈkɒd(ə)l)
Also 7 coddel, quoddle. pa. pple. 7 quodled, 7–8 codled.
[Found first in end of 16th c.; origin uncertain.
The form and sense would be satisfied by a NFr. *caudeler = Fr. *chaudeler, f. caudel, chaudel, late L. cal(i)dellum (see caudle), in sense of ‘to warm, heat gently’; but nothing is known of such forms, though a n. caudelée is used in Normandy. As to possible connexion with codling n.2, see that word.]
1. trans. To boil gently, parboil, stew (esp. fruit: in quot. 1611, it is, of course, suggested by ‘Pippin’).
| 1598 B. Jonson Ev. Man in Hum. i. ii, Taking in all the yong wenches that passe by..and codd'ling euery kernell of fruit for 'hem. a 1611 Beaum. & Fl. Philaster v. iv, Dear Prince Pippin, Down with your noble blood: or as I live I'll have you coddled. a 1655 Sir T. T. de Mayerne Receipts in Cookery No. 150. 101 Take your Pippins green, and quoddle them in faire water. 1765 Sterne Tr. Shandy (1802) VII. xxvii. 58 We'll go..said my father, whilst dinner is coddling. 1769 Johnson in Boswell 26 Oct., Sir, you are not to imagine the water is to be very hot. I would not coddle the child. 1808 Mrs. Rundell Cookery (1838) 149 Coddle six pippins in vine leaves covered with water. 1854 Thoreau Walden xiii. (1886) 237, I collected a small store of wild apples for coddling. 1875 Parish Sussex Gloss., Coddle, to parboil. Apples so cooked are called coddled-apples. |
| fig. a 1613 Overbury A Wife (1638) 162 Hee is tane from Grammar-schoole halfe codled. a 1634 Randolph Poems, Pedlar (1652) 37 If your coxcomes [= heads] you would Quoddle, Here buy Braines to fill your noddle. 1642 Howell For. Trav. (Arb.) 80 Green wits not yet halfe coddled as it were. |
2. In some mod. dialects: To roast (apples, peas, etc.) in the oven: see quots.
| 1876 C. C. Robinson Mid. Yorksh. Gloss. (E.D.S.), Coddle, to roast fruit, etc., as apples, and shelled beans. When the latter crack, they are coddled. 1877 Holderness Gloss., Coddle, to cook certain kinds of food in the oven in place of boiling. 1888 Addy Sheffield Gloss. s.v. Coddle, When apples are roasted in the oven they are said to be coddled. |
Hence ˈcoddled († codled, quodled) ppl. a.
| 1647 Ward Simp. Cobler 76 Dapple your speeches, with new quodled words. 1651 Cleveland Poems 11 Ajax with his anger quodl'd brain. a 1668 Davenant Distresses Wks. (1673) 41 Soft All over, as a quodled Apple. 1688 C. Trenchfield Cap of Gray Hairs xxvi. 169 The mischief on 't too is to see The Codled Fool take upon him in that tune. 1818 Gentl. Mag. LXXXVIII. i. 160/2 Place the flowers in scalding water..then cut off the coddled end of the stems. 1888 Addy Sheffield Gloss., Coddled peas, are peas cooked like chestnuts. They are put into a tin and stewed in a hot oven. |
▪ II. coddle, v.2
(ˈkɒd(ə)l)
[In no Dictionary before Todd 1818. It has been variously conjectured to be the same word as coddle v.1, coddle v.3 (= cuddle), or to be a variant of caddle v., or of caudle v., with the meaning extended to all the treatment of which caudling is a characteristic part. Of these the last would best suit the sense, while the interchange of au and short o is common dialectally.
(Cotgr. has an obs. F. cadeler ‘to cocker, pamper, fedle, cherish, make much of’; but this is unknown elsewhere.)]
trans. To treat as an invalid in need of nourishing food and nursing; to nurse overmuch, cocker. Often with up; cf. nurse up, cocker up. (It differs from pamper, in that it is those who are supposed to be weakly that are coddled.)
| 1815 Jane Austen Emma i. xii. 88 Be satisfied with doctoring and coddling yourself. 1816 Scott Antiq. ix, Let womankind alone for coddling each other. 1860 Emerson Cond. Life iv. (1861) 91 People..who live to dine, who send for the doctor, who coddle themselves. 1862 Thackeray Four Georges iv. 219 [He] never had a desire but he coddled and pampered it. 1882–3 Schaff Encycl. Relig. Knowl. I. 500 Regret that the State ever undertook to coddle the church. 1889 Boy's Own Paper 17 Aug. 730/1, I don't want to be coddled up and made a fool of. |
Hence ˈcoddled ppl. a., ˈcoddling vbl. n.
| 1824 Miss Mitford Village Ser. i. (1863) 13 Nothing worse for children than coddling. 1884 Cassell's Fam. Mag. Mar. 219/2 A deal of difference betwixt ordinary care of health and coddling. 1886 Athenæum 18 Dec. 823/2 A spoilt and coddled little lad. |
▪ III. coddle, v.3
dial. form of cuddle, to fondle, caress, coax.
▪ IV. coddle, n. colloq.
(ˈkɒd(ə)l)
[f. coddle v.2]
One who coddles himself or is coddled. (Hence mollycoddle.)
| 1830 Miss Mitford Village Ser. iv. (1863) 181 His grandmother herself could not be a greater coddle in her own venerable person. 1848 B. D. Walsh Aristoph., Clouds iii. iii, The town Will pronounce you a mammy-sick coddle. 1870 G. W. Dasent Annals of Life I. 131 Aunt Mandeville was no coddle. |