fondle

Mr. Wainwright’s version does fondle the trademark pipe, which suggests the original Maigret as well as a painting by Magritte.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 2, 2025

Like for nervous people, “fidget toys” — sensory objects to fondle — help ground you, Darragh says, gripping a clementine.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 16, 2023

As she paused to fondle a makeup brush, I heard the grip of her finger pads reluctant to give up the cellophane wrapper.

From New York Times ● Apr. 4, 2019

If the joy of studying a masterpiece is, as Nabokov put it, “to fondle the details,” lingering inside the facsimile is unquestionably superior to being herded through the original tomb by a guide.

From The New Yorker ● Nov. 20, 2016

Mammals characteristically nuzzle, fondle, hug, caress, pet, groom and love their young, behavior essentially unknown among the reptiles.

From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan

In perhaps a glancing nod to Chekhov, Sidney fondles a metal-headed club called a mace in his collection and lightly asks what the use is of owning a mace “if you never use it?”

From New York Times ● Aug. 15, 2014

To distinguish his jaunty Banquo from Macbeth, Mr. Cumming fondles a red apple.

From New York Times ● Jul. 8, 2012

Maybe it's because of the remorseful way he fondles the dog's lifeless paws, or the pathetic manner in which Joseph hides out in a Christian charity shop.

From Seattle Times ● Dec. 8, 2011

The barker in Texaco Star Theater continually fondles Texaco products, performs before a curtain picturing a Texaco gas station, and is supported by a close-harmony quartet wearing Texaco uniforms.

From Time Magazine Archive

Once it has been stained in service he fondles it as, next to his pipe, his best friend.

From Tommy Atkins at War As Told in His Own Letters by James Alexander Kilpatrick

“It must be stressful to be touched and fondled by a bunch of strangers,” said Sachiko Azuma, head of Tokyo-based PEACE, which stands for Put an End to Animal Cruelty and Exploitation.

From Seattle Times ● Jan. 29, 2024

On a sweltering summer weekday at Jaemor Farms, a large produce stand off a rural highway, shoppers fondled ripe peaches and sampled ice cream.

From New York Times ● Oct. 2, 2022

“It’s touchless, it’s considered safe and it’s prepackaged so products haven’t been fondled and breathed on,” she said.

From Washington Post ● Mar. 12, 2021

Last Friday, Fonda, who turned eighty in December, was sitting in a publicity office, wearing mod-ish pants, a black turtleneck, and a chain necklace that she occasionally fondled.

From The New Yorker ● Sep. 26, 2018

The airedale--undoubtedly there was an airedale concerned in it somewhere though its feet were startlingly white--changed hands and settled down into Mrs. Wilson's lap, where she fondled the weather-proof coat with rapture.

From " The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The hypocrisy is rank enough; in an interview with Oprah Winfrey, the comic-turned-moralizer yells, presumably at the Black parents he disapproves of, “Believe a child when she says somebody’s fondling her!”

From Washington Post ● Jan. 30, 2022

Those who worried she couldn’t top 2017’s icy wonderland of lifeless foliage can breathe easily now that we’ve been graced with the image of Trump fondling ornaments with arms characteristically unmoored from her sleeves:

From Slate ● Nov. 26, 2018

Ivory doesn't have much success in filling in the elisions, but Guadagnino's direction compounds the superficiality with camerawork that can't resist fondling every surface it encounters.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 1, 2018

This has been going on forever – certainly since Ovid wrote of Pygmalion kissing and fondling his statue until the gods took pity.

From The Guardian ● Jul. 29, 2017

Late that afternoon he came back from Lone Pine in a midnight blue Nash sedan, fondling the short, stubby gearshift that projected from its dashboard.

From "Farewell to Manzanar" by Jeanne Houston