dandle

Ropes dandle like a makeshift cape against her back.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 9, 2023

Buy your house and invite your mother-in-law over to dandle the grandkids on her knees as much as she likes, but don’t ask them to move in with you.

From Slate ● Jan. 27, 2016

And as I recline next to Lillian Hellman, I dandle Miss Kathie's adopted baby on my knee.

From The Guardian ● Jul. 26, 2010

His three children, now famed players Ethel, Lionel and John, would crawl on adolescent Ralph Modjeski's knees, and he would dandle them up and down.

From Time Magazine Archive

She turns that into a tune: “A moth-er, a broth-er, a fath-er. A doodle, a dandle, a candle.”

From "The Unfinished Angel" by Sharon Creech

The stately U.S. elm, which inspires the weekend artist and dandles the infant oriole, is in worse danger than ever.

From Time Magazine Archive

A father who never dandles his child on his knee cannot have a very keen sense of the responsibilities of paternity.

From In Darkest England and the Way Out by William Booth

Then she dandles him in her arms, and packs off the little pinched hope of the family, so far as wishing can do it, to the domains of Licinus, or to the palace of Crœsus.

From Essays in the Study of Folk-Songs (1886) by Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco

Molière is kind to his bourgeois, envelops him softly in satire as in cotton-wool, dandles him like a great baby; and Coquelin is without bitterness, stoops to make stupidity heroic, a distinguished stupidity.

From Plays, Acting and Music A Book Of Theory by Arthur Symons

The subtile Nile catches him softly in his cool arms, dandles him, kisses Him, flatters him, wooes him imperceptibly onwards.

From Idolatry A Romance by Julian Hawthorne

David Jordan, 53, of Northwest Washington, dandled his 6-month-old son on his lap as the rest of his family played on a blanket.

From Washington Post ● Aug. 20, 2022

Now he dandled a baby on his knee, greeted his former cellmate’s mother, checked his phone, answered a call, then yelled congratulations to another family.

From New York Times ● Aug. 13, 2022

Angie dandled our infant daughter off to the side of the kitchen while we pretended to cook something for the camera.

From The Guardian ● Nov. 25, 2017

And then we see Walt’s baby Holly, in a pink hat with cat’s ears, being dandled on Hank’s knee.

From Slate ● Aug. 13, 2012

I told her how I often recalled Sunday mornings at home when I dandled her on my knee while Mum was in the kitchen making a roast.

From "Long Walk to Freedom" by Nelson Mandela

And those who know Farage well understand his very human reluctance to see someone else dandling his baby on their knee.

From BBC ● Nov. 28, 2019

Moments later, Rick imagined him and his friends blissfully sitting around an al fresco table at Alexandria, eating a meal, with Abraham still alive and Glenn dandling Maggie’s baby.

From The Guardian ● Oct. 24, 2016

Som was on the cellphone with their older daughter, who was away at school; Niang, a teacher, was dandling their 7-month-old baby, their third child.

From Washington Post ● Apr. 23, 2015

He also moved back into the house without discussing it first with Skyler, then presented Scarface, with baby dandling on his knee, as fond family entertainment.

From Slate ● Jul. 30, 2012

The academicians watched my mother as they played with me, to see how she took their games, their dandling of her beloved son, their demonstration of amiable paternity; and her smile warmed us all.

From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume I: The Pox Party" by M.T. Anderson