A Scottish or archaic English word meaning to pet, fondle, or treat with excessive kindness.
From Middle English 'dauten,' possibly related to Old Norse 'dattr' (to fondle). The word shows Scottish English's rich preservation of older verb forms that died out in standard English.
Scottish English is like a linguistic fossil—it preserved medieval verb forms ('dinna,' 'maun,' 'dawt') that mainland English abandoned, making Scottish speech sound both ancient and modern at once.
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