dorloti

The payoff is one compound, and it is the word you will use most.Dorlotbesto - pamper-animal - is Esperanto for a pet. Not a working animal, not livestock, but the creature in the house whose entire job is to be made a fuss of, and the language names it by what people do to it rather than by what it is. English has to borrow pet from a Scots word for a hand-reared lamb; Esperanto just describes the situation. Once you know dorloti, you have dorlotbesto for nothing, and it is a top-three example of why the compounding system is worth the effort.

The register is warm, not sour. Dorloti is what a grandparent does, what you do to a cat, what you do to yourself after a hard week. It only turns critical in context - dorlotita infano is a spoiled child, and there the tone comes from the participle and the situation rather than from the root. Karesi is the physical act of stroking; zorgi is looking after somebody, which is duty rather than indulgence; dorloti is the affectionate excess in between.

The built family is generous. Dorloto is the pampering itself and dorlotado the habit of it. Dorlotulo is somebody who gets fussed over - a darling, or a favourite - and dorlotinfano is the spoilt child said in one word. Dorloti sin is to treat oneself, which is exactly the modern English idiom, and dorlotema describes the person who cannot help doing it to everybody.