Mollycoddle

To treat or spoil a person with excessive gentleness and care dates from the early 19th century. The coddle part is easy to understand and means to boil gently as in coddled eggs and dates from the late 16th century. By the early 19th century, coddle had come to mean treat gently, as one would an invalid. The molly part is more difficult to understand. The etymological consensus is that it derives a common 18th century use, where a molly was slang for an effeminate homosexual man. Putting the two together, treating gently and homosexual effeminacy, it is quite easy to see how the current meaning evolved.