Part 490

The sapless dotages of old Paris and Salamanca.

Milton.

3. Excessive fondness; weak and foolish affection.

The dotage of the nation on presbytery.

Bp. Burnet.

Do"tal (?), a. [L. dotalis, fr. dos, dotis, dowry: cf. F. dotal. See Dot dowry.] Pertaining to dower, or a woman's marriage portion; constituting dower, or comprised in it. Garth.

Do"tant (?), n. A dotard. [Obs.] Shak.

Do"tard (?), n. [Dote, v. i.] One whose mind is impaired by age; one in second childhood.

The sickly dotard wants a wife.

Prior.

Do"tard*ly, a. Foolish; weak. Dr. H. More.

Do"ta*ry (?), n. A dotard's weakness; dotage. [Obs.] Drayton.

Do*ta"tion (?), n. [LL. dotatio, fr. L. dotare to endow, fr. dos, dotis, dower: cf. F. dotation. See Dot dowry.] 1. The act of endowing, or bestowing a marriage portion on a woman.

2. Endowment; establishment of funds for support, as of a hospital or eleemosynary corporation. Blackstone.

Dote (?), n. [See Dot dowry.] 1. A marriage portion. [Obs.] See 1st Dot, n. Wyatt.

2. pl. Natural endowments. [Obs.] B. Jonson.

Dote, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Doted; p. pr. & vb. n. Doting.] [OE. doten; akin to OD. doten, D. dutten, to doze, Icel. dotta to nod from sleep, MHG. t&?;zen to keep still: cf. F. doter, OF. radoter (to dote, rave, talk idly or senselessly), which are from the same source.] [Written also doat.] 1. To act foolishly. [Obs.]

He wol make him doten anon right.

Chaucer.

2. To be weak-minded, silly, or idiotic; to have the intellect impaired, especially by age, so that the mind wanders or wavers; to drivel.

Time has made you dote, and vainly tell Of arms imagined in your lonely cell.

Dryden.

He survived the use of his reason, grew infatuated, and doted long before he died.

South.

3. To be excessively or foolishly fond; to love to excess; to be weakly affectionate; -- with on or upon; as, the mother dotes on her child.

Sing, siren, for thyself, and I will dote.

Shak.

What dust we dote on, when 't is man we love.