Cuddly means soft and pleasant to hold close. A cuddly toy, cuddly and warm, a big cuddly bear.
A cuddly toy is the standard British term for what America calls a stuffed animal. Of people it is affectionate and gently teasing about size, which makes it a word to use only about somebody who will take it well.
1adjectivecuddlySoft and pleasant to hold close.
“The baby fell asleep holding a soft, cuddly teddy bear.”
cuddly is a quality.
Middle English
*cudden
English
cuddle
English, today
cuddly
Built from
From cuddle + -y. cuddle Origin unknown, but probably from a frequentative form of Middle English cudden, cuththen, keththen (“to embrace”), a variant of cuthen, kuthen, kithen (“to be familiar with, make known”), from Middle English cuth, couth (“known, familiar”), equivalent to couth + -le. Cognate with Middle Dutch kudden (“to come together, flock together”). More at couth.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA