dote

[doht]

verb (used without object)

doted, doting 

1. to bestow or express excessive love or fondness habitually (usually followed by on orupon ).

   They dote on their youngest daughter.

2. to show a decline of mental faculties, especially associated with old age.

noun

1. decay of wood.

dote

/ dəʊt /

verb

1. to love to an excessive or foolish degree

2. to be foolish or weak-minded, esp as a result of old age

Other Word Forms

• doter noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of dote¹

1175–1225; Middle English doten “to behave foolishly, become feeble-minded”; cognate with Middle Dutch doten

Word History and Origins

Origin of dote¹

C13: related to Middle Dutch doten to be silly, Norwegian dudra to shake

Example Sentences

He was born in 1936 in Sacramento, Calif. His father was a well-respected local lawyer, and his doting mother had been an assistant in the state Senate.

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Known to the children as “aunty” or “grandma,” Johnson would treat them to dips in the pool at the Raffles and doted on them at the center.

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Graves, who travels with his wife and dotes on his grandchildren, says he had a very successful career and has a very full life.

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So if “Peacemaker” viewers were puzzled as to how a backwards, murderous bigot like Earth Prime Auggie could manifest as a doting father and an affluent man in a nearly identical world, now we know.

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We’re introduced to him not as a thief, but as a doting father who wakes at the crack of dawn, tenderly lays his son in bed next to his sister, and heads off to work.

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Related Words

• cherish