dandle

verb

1. (transitive)To move up and down on one's knee or in one's arms, in affectionate play, usually said of a child.

   “the young mother sat [the infant] upright in her lap, and[…]dandled it with a gloomy indifference.”

   “You will nurse and be carried on her arm and dandled on her knees.”

   “Hands grasped me like a doll, and as I dandled thus between the meretrices of Abaia, I was lifted from my broad-armed chair in the inn of Saltus; yet still, for perhaps a hundred heartbeats more, I could not rid my mind of the sea and its green-haired women.”

2. (transitive)To treat with fondness or affection, as if a child; to pet.

   “[T]hey have put me in a silk night-gown and gaudy fool's cap, and make me now and then stand in the window with it. I am ashamed to be dandled thus, and cannot look in the glass without blushing to see myself turned into such a pretty little master.”

   “The book, thus dandled into popularity by bishops and good ladies, contained many pieces of nursery eloquence.”

3. (obsolete, transitive)To play with; to wheedle.

   “captaines, who notwithstanding that they are specially imployed to make peace thorough strong execution of warre, yet they doe so dandle their doings, and dallie in the service to them committed”

noun

1. A teeter-totter; a seesaw.