pamper
- 01 B2 Upper Intermediate
to give someone a lot of comfort and special treatment to make them feel good.
to treat with extreme or excessive kindness, care, or indulgence, often involving physical comfort or luxury.
Simple“On her birthday, she went to a spa to pamper herself for the day.”
In context“The luxury hotel is designed to pamper its guests with twenty-four-hour room service and private butler assistance.”
UsageOften used reflexively, as in 'to pamper oneself'.
- 02 C1 Advanced
to treat someone, like a child or pet, with too much care.
to coddle or overindulge someone to the point of potentially making them weak or overly dependent.
Simple“The grandparents tend to pamper the children by giving them whatever they want.”
In context“Critics argued that the new policy would pamper the industry rather than forcing it to become competitive innoate and compete in the global market.”
SynonymsbabymollycoddleAntonyms
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 West Flemish 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 adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.