cosset

[kos-it]

verb (used with object)

to treat as a pet; pamper; coddle.

noun

a lamb brought up without its dam; pet lamb.
any pet.

Origin of cosset

1570–80; akin to Old English cossetung kissing, verbal noun based on *cossettan to kiss, derivative of coss kiss

Related formsun·cos·set·ed, adjective

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Related Words for cosseting

fondle, lamb, love, pamper, pet, cuddle, caress, spoil

Examples from the Web for cosseting

Contemporary Examples of cosseting

You may well be about to embark on four days of cosseting, eating, drinking, and sleeping.
How to Make It Through Thanksgiving Alive
Lizzie Crocker
November 26, 2014
I have no cosseting and protection, nor am I invited to the same parties.
Joan Rivers: Our Last Interview
Tim Teeman
September 4, 2014

Historical Examples of cosseting

I think you're cosseting me up altogether and I don't like the white bread so well!
Hortus Inclusus
John Ruskin
First of all there was the usual ceremony of “cosseting” and drying tears.
Tom, Dick and Harry
Talbot Baines Reed
But it seemed to Maurice that he needed as much attention and cosseting as a woman.
The Graftons
Archibald Marshall
She is the very soul of impartiality; but there is no cosseting.
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865
Various
But cosseting and coddling in a warm house will never restore me.
An Alabaster Box
Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley

British Dictionary definitions for cosseting

cosset

verb -sets, -seting or -seted (tr)

to pamper; coddle; pet

noun

any pet animal, esp a lamb

Word Origin for cosset

C16: of unknown origin

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for cosseting

cosset

1650s, "to fondle, caress, indulge," from a noun (1570s) meaning "lamb brought up as a pet" (applied to persons from 1590s), perhaps from Old English cot-sæta "one who dwells in a cot." Related: Coseted; coseting. Cf. German Hauslamm, Italian casiccio.