cosset
/ˈkɒsɪt
/verb (cossets, cosseting, cosseted) [with object]
Care for and protect in an overindulgent way: all her life she’d been cosseted by her family...
- For a large part its because we've been cosseted and protected by America.
- The silence comes from an allegedly compassionate desire to protect or cosset the poor, rather than treating them like responsible adults.
- And it's not just pampered pooches and cosseted cats who are in with a chance of stealing the show.
Synonyms
pamper, indulge, overindulge, mollycoddle, coddle, baby, pet, mother, nanny, nursemaid, pander to, spoon-feed, feather-bed, overparent, spoil;
wrap in cotton wool, wait on someone hand and foot, cater to someone's every whim, kill with kindness
archaic cocker
Origin
Mid 16th century (as a noun denoting a lamb brought up by hand, later a spoiled child): probably from Anglo-Norman French coscet 'cottager', from Old English cotsǣta 'cottar'.
In the 16th century a lamb brought up by hand as a pet was known as a cosset. The term was later used to refer to a spoiled child, and this is where the modern sense, ‘to pamper someone’, came from. The origin of the word is probably Old French coscet ‘cottager’. Compare pet
Rhymes
- free beach
- free bench
- freebie
- free-blowing
- free-blown
- freeboard
- freeboarded
- freeboot
- freebooter
- free-bootery
- free-booty
- freeborn
- free burgher
- free chant
- free chase
- Free Church
- Free Churchism
- Free Churchman
- Free Church of Scotland
- Free Cinema
- free city
- free climb
- free climber
- free climbing
- free coinage