- indulge
- indulge, pamper, humor, spoil, baby, mollycoddle mean to show undue favor or attention to a person or his desires.Indulge implies weakness or compliance in gratifying another's wishes or desires, especially those which have no claim to fulfillment or which ought to be kept under control{
I would indulge her every whim— Hardy
}{pasty- faced languid creatures ... indulged in food and disciplined in play— Russell
}{when schoolboys were less indulged with pocket money— Archibald Marshall
}Pamper carries an implication of inordinate gratification of an appetite or taste especially for what is luxurious or dainty and, therefore, softening in its physical, mental, or moral effects{rich though they were, they refused to pamper their children
}{he preserved without an effort the supremacy of character and mind over the flesh he neither starved nor pampered— Dickinson
}{no country can afford to pamper snobbery— Shaw
}Humor stresses either attention to or an easy yielding to whim, caprice, or changing desires; it therefore often suggests accommodation to the moods of another{humoring a pet fawn which had a predilection for soap and cigarette butts— Corsiniy
}{the tone of your voice ... is too gentle, as if you were humoring the vagaries of a blind man's mind— Hecht
}Spoil stresses the injurious effect on the character or disposition of one who is indulged, pampered, humored, or otherwise made the recipient of special attention; however the word is often used to imply attentions that are likely to have this effect{"She talks a great deal, sir," Elizabeth apologized. "She's our only little girl, and I'm afraid we spoil her"— Deland
}Baby implies excessive attentions, especially of the kind given to those who are unable to care for themselves and need the constant assistance of a mother or nurse; it also carries a strong implication of humoring or pampering{babying Americans, telling them what they should read and should not read— Sokolsky
}{Lydia had two methods of taking men down: babying them and harping on their faults— Edmund Wilson
}Mollycoddle usually implies babying; it distinctively suggests inordinate attention to another's health or physical comfort or undue efforts to relieve another of strain or hardship. It often also connotes, as the effect or danger of such treatment, effeminateness or infantilism{schools where grown boys and girls are mollycoddled
}{look here, mother dear: I'm as well as ever I was, and I'm not going to be mollycoddled any more— Braddon
}Antonyms: discipline (others): abstain (with reference to oneself, one's appetite)
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
