Other forms: pampered, pampers, pampering
To pamper is to treat somebody with far too much indulgence. Pamper the cat, a pampered life, pamper yourself.
It is mildly critical about other people and entirely positive about yourself, which is why the beauty industry sells pampering by the hour. The word first meant to stuff with food, and the sense of overfeeding is still faintly in it.
1verbpamperTo treat somebody with far too much indulgence.
“They pamper their dog with steak dinners and a velvet bed.”
pamper is an indulging.
Middle English pamperen means to cram with food, from a Middle Dutch word meaning to stuff.
Proto-Indo-European
*bamb- — round object
Proto-Germanic
*pamp- — to swell
Middle Dutch
*pamperen — to cram with food
Middle English
pamperen — to cram with food
English, today
pamper
Built from
From Middle English pamperen (“to cram with food”), from Middle Dutch pamperen (“to cram with food”), frequentative of pampen (“to stuff”), from Proto-Germanic pamp- (“to swell”), from Proto-Indo-European bamb- (“round object”), equivalent to pamp + er. Cognate with vls pamperen (“to cram with food, overindulge”), Middle Low German pampen (“to stuff oneself”), dialectal German pampfen (“to cram”), dialectal Danish pampe (“to boast, brag”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA