coddle

verb

1. (transitive)To treat gently or with great care.

   “How many of our English princes have been coddled at home by their fond papas and mammas, walled up in inaccessible castles, with a tutor and a library, guarded by cordons of sentinels, sermoners, old aunts, old women from the world without, and have nevertheless escaped from all these guardians, and astonished the world by their extravagance and their frolics?”

2. (transitive)To cook slowly in hot water that is below the boiling point.

   “a coddled egg”

   “It [the guava fruit] bakes as well as a Pear, and it may be coddled, and it makes good Pies.”

3. (transitive)To exercise excessive or damaging authority in an attempt to protect. To overprotect.

noun

1. An Irish dish comprising layers of roughly sliced pork sausages and bacon rashers with sliced potatoes and onions.
2. (archaic)An effeminate person.