Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
to spoil someone rotten

to spoil someone rotten

3 6.7
To give someone too much kindness and gifts so they expect special treatment
  • idiom
  • Informal
translation icon : mimar a alguien
  • My grandparents always spoil me rotten with gifts during the holidays.
  • going to spoil you rotten

Examples

Synonyms

to spoil
vsto spoil someone rotten
70 3.7

To give a child too many gifts or freedoms, causing bad behavior

is more about creating overindulgence that makes the person demanding
to pamper
vsto spoil someone rotten
42 3.7

To give someone too much care and special treatment

focuses on kindness and gifts that create overindulgence and demandingness
to indulge
vsto spoil someone rotten
39 4.1

To let someone have whatever they want, often too much

is more about giving kindness and gifts that result in overindulgence and demandingness
to coddle
vsto spoil someone rotten
37 6.4

Treat someone with too much care so they become less independent

is about treating kindly with gifts and creating demanding behaviour
to baby
vsto spoil someone rotten
  • Informal
30 6.0

To treat someone with too much care and make things too easy for them

is about kindness and gifts that leave someone overindulged and demanding
to lavish
vsto spoil someone rotten
17 5.3

To give a lot of money, praise, or love to someone freely

is more about treating with excessive kindness and gifts that make people demanding
to baby up
vsto spoil someone rotten
  • Informal
6 8.8

To treat someone with too much care so they do not learn to help themselves

is more about kindness and gifts and indulgence that create demanding behaviour
to overindulge
vsto spoil someone rotten
3 6.2

Let yourself and others have too much food or drink

is about giving kindness and gifts that lead to someone becoming overindulged and demanding
to mollycoddle
vsto spoil someone rotten
  • Archaic
1 9.3

To give someone too much care so they become weak

is focused on kindness and gifts and indulgence making someone overindulged and demanding
to cocker
vsto spoil someone rotten
  • UK
9.9

To give someone too much care or gifts so they do not learn to manage on their own

is about giving kindness and gifts that make someone overindulged and demanding
to smother with love
vsto spoil someone rotten
  • Informal
7.0

To give someone so much care and affection that they feel overwhelmed

focuses on kindness and gifts that create overindulgence and demandingness

Antonyms

discipline
173 3.6

Training people to follow rules, often using punishment or strict control

neglect
100 3.5

Not caring for someone or something that needs care

How Indulgent

to spoil someone rotten
  • Informal
3 6.7
to pamper
42 3.7
to indulge
39 4.1
to treat
∞ 1.0

Surface Forms

spoil someone rotten infinitive
spoiled someone rotten past
spoiled someone rotten past participle
spoiling someone rotten present participle
spoils someone rotten third person singular

Morphology

spoil + someone + rotten

The verb 'spoil' already carries the meaning 'indulge excessively' and adding 'rotten' functions as an intensifier meaning 'thoroughly' or 'completely', so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words can compose the sense 'to indulge someone very much'. The construction follows a transparent compositional pattern (verb + object + intensifier) found in many languages, making the idiomatic nuance predictable rather than opaque.

Etymology

The idiom spoil someone rotten may come from the image of food going bad: spoil and rotten were words for things that decay. So, if you give a person too many gifts or too much care you 'spoil' them and 'ruin' their behaviour, which is why the phrase means 'to treat someone with too much kindness so they become demanding'.