Library / English Dictionary

DOTE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Shower with love; show excessive affection for

Example:

Grandmother dotes on the twins

Classified under:

Verbs of feeling

Hypernyms (to "dote" is one way to...):

love (have a great affection or liking for)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s PP

Sense 2

Meaning:

Be foolish or senile due to old age

Classified under:

Verbs of being, having, spatial relations

Hypernyms (to "dote" is one way to...):

age; get on; maturate; mature; senesce (grow old or older)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s

Derivation:

dotard (an oldster in his dotage; someone whose age has impaired his intellect)

Credits

 Context examples: 

Marianne restored to life, health, friends, and to her doting mother, was an idea to fill her heart with sensations of exquisite comfort, and expand it in fervent gratitude;—but it led to no outward demonstrations of joy, no words, no smiles.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

I heard of the difference of sexes, and the birth and growth of children, how the father doted on the smiles of the infant, and the lively sallies of the older child, how all the life and cares of the mother were wrapped up in the precious charge, how the mind of youth expanded and gained knowledge, of brother, sister, and all the various relationships which bind one human being to another in mutual bonds.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

“Don't it—I don't say that it does, mind I want to know—don't it rather engross him? Don't it make him, perhaps, a little more remiss than usual in his visits to his blindly-doting—eh?”

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

So altered—so faded—worn down by acute suffering of every kind! hardly could I believe the melancholy and sickly figure before me, to be the remains of the lovely, blooming, healthful girl, on whom I had once doted.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

Death snatches away many blooming children, the only hopes of their doting parents; how many brides and youthful lovers have been one day in the bloom of health and hope, and the next a prey for worms and the decay of the tomb!

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

What could I do, but kiss away her tears, and tell her how I doted on her, after that!

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Mrs. Jennings wrote to tell the wonderful tale, to vent her honest indignation against the jilting girl, and pour forth her compassion towards poor Mr. Edward, who, she was sure, had quite doted upon the worthless hussy, and was now, by all accounts, almost broken-hearted, at Oxford.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

His eyes wandered in vacancy, for they had lost their charm and their delight—his Elizabeth, his more than daughter, whom he doted on with all that affection which a man feels, who in the decline of life, having few affections, clings more earnestly to those that remain.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

To be allowed to call her Dora, to write to her, to dote upon and worship her, to have reason to think that when she was with other people she was yet mindful of me, seemed to me the summit of human ambition—I am sure it was the summit of mine.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Once she asked for a particular ballad, which she said her Ury (who was yawning in a great chair) doted on; and at intervals she looked round at him, and reported to Agnes that he was in raptures with the music.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)