The Etymology of Coddle
Coddle is one of those English verbs that looks fanciful but has a clean medieval pedigree. The Middle English noun caudle named a warm spiced drink, often wine or ale thickened with bread, eggs, and sweet spices, given to convalescents and new mothers. Caudle came from Anglo-Norman caudel, in turn from Late Latin caldellum, a diminutive of Latin calidus (warm) — the same root behind French chaud, Italian caldo, and Spanish cálido. By 1598 the related verb to coddle had appeared, meaning to cook something gently in barely simmering water — exactly the temperature at which a caudle was prepared. The cooking sense survives in coddled eggs and coddled fruit. The figurative leap — to treat someone with the gentle, fussy care given to an invalid — is recorded by 1815, and is now the dominant meaning. The compound mollycoddle followed in 1833, intensifying the image.