mollycoddle
Americannoun
verb (used with object)
-
mollycoddles,
present (3rd person singular)
-
mollycoddled,
past participle, past
-
mollycoddling
present participle
verb
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
mollycoddlesimple
-
mollycoddlessimple
-
have mollycoddledperfect
-
has mollycoddledperfect
-
am mollycoddlingprogressive
-
are mollycoddlingprogressive
-
is mollycoddlingprogressive
-
have been mollycoddlingperfect progressive
-
has been mollycoddlingperfect progressive
Past
-
mollycoddledsimple
-
had mollycoddledperfect
-
was mollycoddlingprogressive
-
were mollycoddlingprogressive
-
had been mollycoddlingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of mollycoddle
First recorded in 1825–35; Molly (a female name used in the sense “effeminate man”) + coddle
Explanation
Mollycoddle means to spoil or overindulge something. You can think of mollycoddle as an extreme form of coddle. If you constantly fuss over your dog and serve her homemade food while she's resting on a soft feather bed, you mollycoddle her. Mollycoddle began as a noun describing a man who pampered or indulged himself too much. When applied to men, Molly, the woman's name, was a slur meaning "too feminine." No longer just for men, the verb mollycoddle describes any kind of excessively indulgent or overprotective treatment. A coach may mollycoddle his star player by planning practice around his schedule, or you may mollycoddle your little sister by doing her homework for her when she says she's tired.
Vocabulary lists containing mollycoddle
The Downstairs Girl
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Spooked
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Savvy
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The feat followed trial and error that initially saw him mollycoddle corals in stress-free environments, but those easily perished in the ocean once transplanted.
From Barron's ● Jul. 29, 2026
For all the female agency on display, Barbie still has to placate and mollycoddle the insecure Ken.
From Salon ● Jul. 19, 2023
Molly Roberts, true to her name, didn’t mollycoddle the baby boomer generation in her Nov. 6 Wednesday Opinion column, “OK, boomer. The kids are fighting back.”
From Washington Post ● Nov. 8, 2019
That may annoy European bankers, but is hardly a reason to mollycoddle them.
From Economist ● Oct. 15, 2015
We didn't bring the boy out here to make a mollycoddle of him.
From Held Fast For England A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) by G. A. (George Alfred) Henty
So, you see, the picture as you paint it gives us credit for being real hemen, when as a matter of fact we have degenerated into a bunch of mollycoddles.
From Time Magazine Archive
Were its ballplayers men or New Age mollycoddles?
From Time Magazine Archive
In this great expanse of wilderness toilers are needed, but we can’t use mollycoddles.
From The Peace of Roaring River by W. H. D. (William Henry Dethlef) Koerner
He had his own way of hitting back at the mollycoddles.
From London Days A Book of Reminiscences by Arthur Warren
I'm tired of mollycoddles and book-worms,' said Nan in her decided way.
From Jo's Boys by Louisa May Alcott
His passion for her grows to such a pitch that he starts bounding up stairs instead of crawling over them like a mollycoddled toddler.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 16, 2024
I went from my parents’ mollycoddled child to an adult that had to do their own laundry.
From The Verge ● Aug. 8, 2022
“I don’t think we can be mollycoddled to live in a bubble the whole time.”
From Washington Post ● Jul. 19, 2021
Were these schoolchildren really so mollycoddled that they couldn’t cope for just a minute without distraction, without the consolation of continuous chatter?
From The Guardian ● Jun. 6, 2018
He must not be "mollycoddled"; to do so would be to leave him a burden to himself and to his friends.
From Through St. Dunstan's to Light by James H. Rawlinson
You’d think businesses wouldn’t require a lot of mollycoddling when it came to defining abusive behavior.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 21, 2021
While perhaps whimsical in premise, it was not an exercise in mollycoddling.
From New York Times ● Mar. 19, 2021
I took refuge in what the club calls the press building, a recently constructed Taj Mahal of media mollycoddling.
From The New Yorker ● Jun. 14, 2019
Hard-liners sometimes criticise the church for "mollycoddling" the teenagers at St Basil's - who they would prefer to see serving long prison sentences than practicing Parkour.
From BBC ● Oct. 16, 2012
“But what I say is, too much cuddling and mollycoddling isn’t good for that boy of yours, or anybody else’s boy.”
From The Prairie Child by Ward. E. F. (Edmund Franklin)
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
