Cuddly

How to spell cuddly

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce cuddly

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does cuddly mean?

1. adjectiveSoft, warm, and pleasant to hold or hug closely.

Cuddly in a sentence

• The toddler refused to sleep without her cuddly stuffed rabbit.

• The shelter kitten was so cuddly that the family adopted it on the spot.

Where does cuddly come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Cuddly is the adjective formed from the verb cuddle, and the verb itself has a genuinely murky history that lexicographers have never fully settled. Cuddle appears in English around the seventeenth century meaning 'to hug or hold close in an affectionate way', and it may have grown out of an earlier dialectal word couth or cull, both linked to ideas of being snug, familiar, or kindly. Some scholars connect it to the Middle English couthe, meaning 'known' or 'familiar', the same root that survives in the word 'uncouth' (literally 'unknown' or 'unfamiliar'). Others treat cuddle simply as a soft, half-imitative nursery word that sounds like the comforting thing it describes. The adjective cuddly, meaning soft and pleasant to hug, is more recent and became common in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, especially for toys and pets. Because the origin is honestly uncertain, the spelling tip to lean on is the structure itself: keep the double 'd' from cuddle and drop the final 'e' before adding -y.

How the word is built

• cuddl- (from the verb cuddle: to hold close and affectionately)
• -y (adjective suffix); the silent 'e' of cuddle is dropped before -y