[A dialectal or nursery word of uncertain derivation.
Possibly a derivative of COUTH a. in the sense ‘snug, cosy’: cf. fondle from fond adj. An original *couthle might become cuddle, as in ME. fiðele, fithel, now FIDDLE, the vowel being also shortened before the consonant group. (Close connection with the ME. cudde, cuþþed, pa. t. of cuðen, KYTHE, ‘to make known, refl. to make themselves known, become friends together,’ is not tenable, because u was here = ü, OE. y, as seen in Ormin’s spelling kiþþed.) Another suggestion is that it is related to Du. kudden ‘coire, convenire, congregari, aggregari’ (Kilian), f. kudde flock, herd:—OLG. *kuddi = OHG. chutti. Further evidence as to its early use is wanted, there being at present known only one doubtful example before 1700.]
1. trans. To press or draw close within the arms, so as to make warm and ‘cosy’; to hug or embrace affectionately, to fondle; also absol.
c. 1520. Song, in Rel. Ant., I. 239. Cudlyng of my cowe.
1719. D’Urfey, Pills, III. 28. ’Twas playing with her at Cuddle my Cuddy.
1789. Burns, 2 Ep. Davie, ii. Till bairns’ bairns kindly cuddle Your auld gray hairs.
a. 1825. Forby, Voc. E. Anglia, Cuddle, to hug and fondle.
1825. Brockett, N. C. Words, Cuddle, to embrace, to squeeze, to hug.
1863. Kingsley, Water-Bab., v. 219. Little boys … who have kind mammas to cuddle them.
fig. 1851. Thackeray, Eng. Hum., i. (1876), 148. Temple seems … to have been coaxed, and warmed, and cuddled by the people round about him. Ibid., ii. 193. Cuddling to his heart the compliment which his literary majesty had paid him.
b. To cuddle up: to arrange comfortably.
1743. H. Walpole, Lett. H. Mann (1834), I. lxxxiv. 296. Mamie herself could not have cuddled up an affair for his Sovereign Lady better.
c. To cuddle out of: to coax or wheedle out of.
1808. C. Kirkpatrick Sharpe, Corr. (1888), I. 336. To cuddle his mother out of her money.
2. intr. To lie close and snug; to nestle in to another person, to cling close together for warmth or comfort. (Often with extension; see quots.)
1711. E. Ward, Quix., I. 158.
| Who would in Spite of Wedlock Run |
1718. Prior, The Dove, 55. She [a partridge] cuddles low behind the brake.
1727. Somerville, Fab., xi. (R.). They bill’d, they chirp’d all day, They cuddled close all night.
1888. W. Somerset Word-bk., Two children lying very close together in bed would be said to be cuddled together. Again, chickens are said to cuddle in under the hen.
b. To curl oneself up in going to sleep; hence, to lie down to sleep. (Also refl.)
1822. Galt, Sir A. Wylie, I. x. 76. Whar am I to cuddle?
1847. Alb. Smith, Chr. Tadpole, vii. (1879), 65. Many a shining-coated insect cuddled itself up within the little tents thus made.
1888. Eliz. B. Custer, Tenting on Plains (1889), 576. He [a tame beaver] cuddles up under my gown or on my arm and goes to sleep.
c. fig.
1810. T. Jefferson, Writ. (1830), IV. 146. The nest of office being too small for all of them to cuddle into at once.
1864. Lowell, Fireside Trav., 287. A pretty little village, cuddled down among the hills.
Hence Cuddling vbl. sb.
1880. Webb, Goethe’s Faust, IV. xvii. 232. The kissing and cuddling that went on!
