Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Dote

Dote (dōt), n. [See Dot dowry.] 1. A marriage portion. [Obs.] See 1st Dot, n. Wyatt.

2. pl. Natural endowments. [Obs.] B. Jonson.

Dote, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Doted; p. pr. & vb. n. Doting.] [OE. doten; akin to OD. doten, D. dutten, to doze, Icel. dotta to nod from sleep, MHG. tūzen to keep still: cf. F. doter, OF. radoter (to dote, rave, talk idly or senselessly), which are from the same source.] [Written also doat.] 1. To act foolishly. [Obs.]

He wol make him doten anon right. Chaucer.

2. To be weak-minded, silly, or idiotic; to have the intellect impaired, especially by age, so that the mind wanders or wavers; to drivel.

Time has made you dote, and vainly tell Of arms imagined in your lonely cell. Dryden.

He survived the use of his reason, grew infatuated, and doted long before he died. South.

3. To be excessively or foolishly fond; to love to excess; to be weakly affectionate; — with on or upon; as, the mother dotes on her child.

Sing, siren, for thyself, and I will dote. Shak.

What dust we dote on, when 't is man we love. Pope.

Dote, n. An imbecile; a dotard. Halliwell.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty.