Free Translator Free Translator
Translators Dictionaries Courses Other
Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Dandle   Listen
verb
Dandle  v. t.  (past & past part. dandled; pres. part. dandling)  
1.
To move up and down on one's knee or in one's arms, in affectionate play, as an infant. "Ye shall be dandled... upon her knees."
2.
To treat with fondness, as if a child; to fondle; to toy with; to pet. "They have put me in a silk gown and gaudy fool's cap; I as ashamed to be dandled thus." "The book, thus dandled into popularity by bishops and good ladies, contained many pieces of nursery eloquence."
3.
To play with; to put off or delay by trifles; to wheedle. (Obs.) "Captains do so dandle their doings, and dally in the service, as it they would not have the enemy subdued."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Dandle" Quotes from Famous Books



... on the ground; the silly little wheels that so detract from the genial bestiality of its appearance dandle and bump behind it. It swings about its axis. It comes to an obstacle, a low wall let us say, or a heap of bricks, and sets to work to climb it with its snout. It rears over the obstacle, it raises its straining belly, it overhangs more ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells

... reason. I have a little grandchild growin' up around me. I owe a duty to her. I must dandle her on my knee. I must teach her the path of virtue and happiness. If I do not, who will? For though there are plenty to make laws, and to vote, little Samantha Joe has but one ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)

... prehensile, and your little feet turned in, with rosy toes and little pink nails like shiny gems; and I was complimented by Mrs. Jones on the skill with which I dandled you. I have dandled your sons and daughters, Roberta, and may I live to dandle theirs! ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier

... part, we'll part! Nor with a soulful cry Will one strong human citadel surrender. M.O.'s who dandle babes no less than I Will leave me cold; M.O.'s who have a tender Passion for my own type of sock-suspender Won't utter it. Though on my heaving breast They lean their heads, they'll lean them uncaressed; We'll part, nor overstep ...
— Punch, July 18, 1917 • Various

... I am not confident of the folk here, especially in the back lanes, and especially beyond the river," he could not resist warning him again. He was an old servant, who had been like a nurse to Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch, and at one time used to dandle him in his arms; he was a grave and severe man who was fond of listening to religious discourse and ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... earnestness—that is to say, Straussian earnestness—they remain stolidly at his elbow. He, the classical prose-writer, slides his burden along playfully and with a light heart, whereas Beethoven rolls his painfully and breathlessly. He seems merely to dandle his load; this is indeed an advantage. But would anybody believe that it might equally be a sign of something wanting? In any case, only those could believe this who mistake the grotesque for the genial, and the formless for the sublime—is not that so, you dandling favourite of the Graces? ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche

... long time now, the reigning monarch has been looked upon as a kind of god manifest in the flesh. He calls himself "Son of the Sun"; in the temples you will see pictures of his childhood, where great goddesses dandle the young god upon their knees (Plate 2). Divine honours are paid, and sacrifices offered to him; and when he dies, and goes to join his brother-gods in heaven, a great temple rises to his memory, and hosts of priests are employed in his worship. There is just one distinction made between him and ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Ancient Egypt • James Baikie

... very worst result of that unreasoning persistency is the peasant's inveterate habit of litigation. Every one remembers the immortal description of Dandle Dinmont's importunate application to Lawyer Pleydell to manage his "bit lawsuit," till at length Pleydell consents to help him to ruin himself, on the ground that Dandle may fall into worse hands. It seems this is a scene which has many parallels in Germany. The farmer's ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot

... commonly sat at her embroidery, would utter infantine sarcasms about the favor shown to her brother. These, if spoken in the presence of Lord Castlewood, tickled and amused his humor; he would pretend to love Frank best, and dandle and kiss him, and roar with laughter at Beatrix's jealousy. But the truth is, my lord did not often witness these scenes, nor very much trouble the quiet fireside at which his lady passed many long evenings. My lord was hunting all day when the season ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray

... brothers—oh, have not they, in one day, been snatched away, and swallowed up from me, as a jewel that is flung into the deep sea! But I will live to be avenged of their deaths, and my brother's death; and their destroyer shall not dandle a bairn upon his knee, or kiss its cheek, while mine are all, all dead, and in a strange grave, and even wi' no one near to pull up the noxious nettle that may be waving ower their once ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various

... where art thou? What am I come to? A woman's toy, at these years! Death, a bearded baby for a girl to dandle. O dotage, dotage! That ever that noble passion, lust, should ebb to this degree. No reflux of vigorous blood: but milky love supplies the empty channels; and prompts me to the softness of a child—a mere infant and would suck. Can ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve

... would like to. I wonder if he wouldn't do it, if we asked him! Poets read their own compositions in a singsong sort of way; but they do seem to love 'em so, that I always enjoy it. It makes me laugh a little inwardly to see how they dandle their poetical babies, but I don't let them know it. We must get up a select party of the boarders to hear him read. We'll send him a regular invitation. I will put my name at the head of it, and you ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... certain old gentleman, y'cleped your father; whereby I am given to understand, that to-morrow you are to take an oath in the church to be grave henceforward, to go ill-dressed and slovenly, to get heirs for your estate, and to dandle them for your diversion; and, in short, that love and courtship are to be ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden

... with mere outward beauty is, to dandle with a doll, to fawn upon a picture, to rest your hopes upon a plaything, to pursue a phantom which, as soon as you embrace it, may vanish into nothing. Look not to external beauty alone; but also to the ornaments ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips

... The two-ounce vial that held the swift dismissing pang was in the locked drawer of the writing-table beside the whisky-flask. When he was alone and undisturbed—for Lynette seldom came to his consulting-room now—Saxham would take it out and dandle it, and hold it in ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... besought God to spare my life, but with this, came the comfort of feeling that our child would be there if I should die to console them all, Catherine, Aunt Gredel, and Father Goulden. If it should be a boy they would call it Joseph, and caress it, and Father Goulden would dandle it on his knee, Aunt Gredel would love it, and Catherine would think of me as she embraced it, and I should not be altogether dead to them. But I clung to life while I saw how terrible was the ...
— Waterloo - A sequel to The Conscript of 1813 • Emile Erckmann

... feasted on cabbage-soup and the piece of beef which I had been too stuck-up to dandle on my knees, and clear brown cider, the three of us sat outside the house, in the warm August moonlight. Sinking into an infinitely far horizon stretched the fruitful plain of France, cornland and pasture, and near us the stacked sheaves of Paragot's corn stood quiet ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke



Words linked to "Dandle" :   portmanteau, displace, move, dandle board, blend, fondle, caress



Copyright © 2024 Free-Translator.com