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

Before he left he wanted to fondle his treasures once more, to reassure himself that they were an auspicious start to his new venture.

From "Redwall" by Brian Jacques

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

Then very carefully, so as not to destroy the evidence, Baker fondles what he confidently identifies as "some very fresh" turkey droppings.

From Time Magazine Archive

"Ah, mavourneen, may yez never see that day!" nurse Walsh murmurs with passionate fondness, as she takes the girl's hand between her own broad palms and presses and fondles it.

From Only an Irish Girl by Duchess

“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

Both essayists described loneliness and anger, ecstasies of self-recrimination; neither spared much thought for the people they were said to have punched or fondled.

From The New Yorker ● Oct. 10, 2018

“A woman in Santa Barbara, California, sent a $40,000 check. I fondled it for about five minutes and then sent it back. I told her I couldn’t accept money from strangers.”

From Washington Post ● Sep. 18, 2018

The doorknob was fondled, and Eleanor, whispering, asked, “Is it locked?” and Theodora nodded and then, wide-eyed, turned to stare at the connecting bathroom door.

From "The Haunting of Hill House" by Shirley Jackson

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

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

Instead of accessing the quarter-life crisis through the exploits of a solitary protagonist bumbling and fondling his way up against the limitations society had set for him, this film focused on relationships.

From Slate ● Jul. 29, 2014

In 1889 he depicted himself as a doleful, abandoned Jesus in Gethsemane; then as gimlet-eyed Satan fondling a snake; and finally, in a ceramic sculpture, as a bleeding severed head.

From New York Times ● Feb. 24, 2011

At the window he stood watching her, his eyebrows pulled together into waves of compassion, his tongue fondling the worn gold in his upper jaw.

From "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison