Your ShelfYour Projects
Webster's Dictionary (1865)

2 entries under this word

Nurse

Nûrse, n.

noun

n. [O. Eng. nourse, norse, nourice, norice, A-S. norice, from Fr. nourrice, Pr. nuirissa, noirissa, Lat. nutrix, nutricis, from nutrire, to nourish, nurse, Fr. nourrir. Cf. NOURICE.]

Sense 1. One who nourishes; a person who supplies food, tends, or brings up; as, (a.) A woman who has the care of young children; especially, one who suckles an infant not her own. (b.) A person, especially a woman, who has the care of sick persons.

Sense 2. Hence, one who, or that which, brings up, rears, causes to grow, trains, or the like; as, Greece, the nurse of the liberal arts. “Rome, the nurse of judgment.” Shak.

The cheap defense of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise, is gone. Burke.

To put to nurse, or to put out to nurse, to send away to be placed under the care of a nurse; to cause to be attended by a nurse.—Wet nurse, a woman who suckles an infant not her own.

Nûrse, v. t.

verbtransitive

v. t. [imp. & p. p. NURSED (nûrst); p. pr. & vb. n. NURSING.] 1. To nourish; to cherish; to foster; as, (a.) To nourish at the breast; to suckle. (b.) To tend, as a sick person; to take care of, as an invalid; to attend upon. “Sons wont to nurse their parents in old age.” Milton. Him in Egerian groves Aricia bore, And nursed his youth along the marshy shore. Dryden. 2. Hence, to bring up; to raise, by care, from a weak or invalid condition; — applied to plants, animals, and to any object that needs, or thrives by, attention. “To nurse the saplings tall.” Milton. By what hands has vice been nursed into so uncontrolled a dominion? Locke. 3. Also, to manage with care and economy, with a view to increase; as, to nurse our national resources.