coddle
coddle
/ˈkɒdl/
1 coddle somebody (often disapproving) to treat somebody with too much care and attention
She coddles him like a child.
2 coddle something to cook eggs in water slightly below boiling point
Word Origin
late 16th cent. (in the sense ‘boil (fruit) gently)’: origin uncertain; sense (1) is probably a dialect variant of obsolete caudle ‘administer invalids' gruel’, based on Latin caldum ‘hot drink’, from calidus ‘warm’.