Definition of "coddle"

coddle

/ˈkɒd.əl/

verb
third-person singular simple present coddles, present participle coddling, simple past and past participle coddled
1. (transitive) To treat gently or with great care.
  Quotations
  How many of our English princes have been coddled at home by their fond papas and mammas, walled up in inaccessible castles, with a tutor and a library, guarded by cordons of sentinels, sermoners, old aunts, old women from the world without, and have nevertheless escaped from all these guardians, and astonished the world by their extravagance and their frolics?
  1854, Arthur Pendennis [pseudonym; William Makepeace Thackeray], The Newcomes: Memoirs of a Most Respectable Family, volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […]
2. (transitive) To cook slowly in hot water that is below the boiling point.
  Quotations
  It [the guava fruit] bakes as well as a Pear, and it may be coddled, and it makes good Pies.
  1697, William Dampier, A New Voyage Round the World. […], London: […] James Knapton, […], page 222
3. (transitive) To exercise excessive or damaging authority in an attempt to protect. To overprotect.
noun
plural coddles
1. An Irish dish comprising layers of roughly sliced pork sausages and bacon rashers with sliced potatoes and onions.
2. (archaic) An effeminate person.