spoon-fed
Americanadjective
-
fed with a spoon.
-
treated with excessive solicitude; pampered.
-
given no opportunity to act or think for oneself.
Having always been spoon-fed, I couldn't meet the challenge of college.
Etymology
Origin of spoon-fed
First recorded in 1900–05
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.
"I spoon-fed the police," she explains with exasperation as she shows us print-outs of text messages and voicemails.
From BBC • Jun. 30, 2025
Klein confesses that it sometimes felt as if Wolf had fed Klein's ideas into a "bonkers blender" and then spoon-fed the resulting incoherent mishmash directly to Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon.
From Salon • Sep. 14, 2023
One of them, Shamim Salim, 26, was being spoon-fed soup by a well-wisher.
From Reuters • Apr. 26, 2023
On air, he spoon-fed them, straight-faced, to his credulous audience.
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 24, 2023
The blond-haired girl who’d spoon-fed me popcorn-flavored pudding was leaning on the porch rail next to them.
From "The Lightning Thief" by Rick Riordan
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.
