Definition of "pet"

Papyrus: This is my brother's pet rock. He always forgets to feed it. As usual, I have to take responsibility.

2015 September 15, Toby Fox, Undertale, Linux, Microsoft Windows, OS X

At first she sat silent; but that could not last: she had resolved to make a pet of her little cousin, as she would have him to be; and she commenced stroking his curls, and kissing his cheek, and offering him tea in her saucer, like a baby.

1847 December, Ellis Bell [pseudonym; Emily Brontë], chapter XIX, in Wuthering Heights, volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Thomas Cautley Newby, […]

the love of cronies, pets, and favourites

1711 January 1 (Gregorian calendar), Isaac Bickerstaff [et al., pseudonyms; Richard Steele et al.], “Thursday, December 21, 1710”, in The Tatler, number 266; republished in [Richard Steele], editor, The Tatler, […], London stereotype edition, volume III, London: I. Walker and Co.; […], 1822

We kissed & petted for about 15 mins & he still wasn't hard, altho he acted like he was enjoying himself.

1970-1975, Lou Sullivan, personal diary, quoted in 2019, Ellis Martin, Zach Ozma (editors), We Both Laughed In Pleasure

[…] the American dramatist has had to waste most of his first act elaborately planting the information that his Mister Quex is rich, petted by Society, and altogether more spectacular than the common run of men.

1919 August, P. G. Wodehouse, “Prohibition and the Drama”, in Vanity Fair, page 21

He sure is queasie stomach't that must pet, and puke, at such a trivial circumstance

1623, Owen Feltham, Resolves: Divine, Moral, Political

Some young lady's pet curate.

1886, Frederic Harrison, The Choice of Books

Major Butler has a pet grievance and a pet aversion, which he forces on the reader in every chapter, and which becomes at last very wearisome.

1875, William Conant Church, The Galaxy, page 141

In an interview with Flying magazine, Heberding commented that her pet annoyance was "the reluctance of people generally to accept a woman whether as a pilot or a preflight inspector."

1991, Deborah G. Douglas, United States Women in Aviation, 1940-1985, page 9

“Now,” said Hands, “look there; there’s a pet bit for to beach a ship in. Fine flat sand, never a cat's paw, trees all around of it, and flowers a-blowing like a garding on that old ship.”

1881–1882, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island, London, Paris: Cassell & Company, published 14 November 1883

His genius at this time was of a decidedly gloomy cast. He brought his mother a tragedy, in which, though he killed sixteen people before the second act, it made her laugh so, that he thrust the masterpiece into the fire in a pet.

1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 3, in The History of Pendennis. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850

There was something ludicrous, even more, unbecoming a gentleman, in leaving a friend's house in a pet, with the host's reproaches sounding in his ears, to be matched only by the bitterness of the guest's sneering retorts.

1891, Mary Noailles Murfree, In the "Stranger People's" Country, Nebraska, published 2005, page 105

Buck Mulligan sat down in a sudden pet.

1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 1]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […]