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

"Lord Bronn would sound better. I could grab the boy for you just as well. I'll dandle him on my knee and sing him nursery songs if there's a lordship in it."

From "A Clash of Kings" by George R.R. Martin

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

He smiled whimsically, and presently one arm swept beneath her knees, so that presently he held her as one dandles a baby; and presently his stiff and graying beard caressed her burning cheek.

From Chivalry by James Branch Cabell

He dandles on his knee a little princess, daughter of Amenhotep III., whose foster-father he was, and who died before him.

From Manual of Egyptian Archaeology and Guide to the Study of Antiquities in Egypt by G. (Gaston) Maspero

That mother, whose spirit in fetters is bound, While she dandles the babe in her arms to the sound.

From Sketch of Handel and Beethoven Two Lectures, Delivered in the Lecture Hall of the Wimbledon Village Club, on Monday Evening, Dec. 14, 1863; and Monday Evening, Jan. 11, 1864 by Thomas Hanly Ball

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

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

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

Ms. Cruz, 24, dandled the baby, Brandon, and offered juice.

From New York Times ● Sep. 8, 2012

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

Recording the old popular tune “I Don’t Know Why” in 1950, for his outstanding Columbia Records debut, Garner’s fingers lick at the keys and he drags the melody along, dandling it, relishing it.

From New York Times ● Mar. 1, 2023

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

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