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dandle

UK/ˈdændəl/US/ˈdændəl/
verbC2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechToo rare in one of the two pools to compare — fewer than 20 uses in speech or in writing

To dandle is to bounce a small child gently on your knee. Dandle the baby, dandled on his knee, dandling a grandchild.

It is an old and rather warm word that has almost dropped out of use, surviving in descriptions of grandparents. It means bouncing rather than merely holding.

Definitions of dandle

  1. 1verbdandleTo bounce a small child gently on your knee.C2

    “Grandpa loved to dandle the baby on his knee and sing old songs.”

dandle is a bouncing.

Where it comes from

Of uncertain origin, related to dialect words meaning to move about idly.

Compare Scots dandill (“to dander; go about idly; move uncertainly; trifle”), English dialectal dander (“to wander about; talk incoherently; rave”), Middle Dutch dantinnen (“to trifle”) (from French dandiner (“to swing; waddle”)), German dändeln, tändeln (“to trifle, dandle”), Middle Dutch and Provincial German danten (“to do foolish things; trifle”), German Tand (“trifle, prattle”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word