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Nurse   /nərs/   Listen
noun
Nurse  n.  
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 the sick or infirm.
2.
One who, or that which, brings up, rears, causes to grow, trains, fosters, or the like. "The nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise."
3.
(Naut.) A lieutenant or first officer, who is the real commander when the captain is unfit for his place.
4.
(Zool.)
(a)
A peculiar larva of certain trematodes which produces cercariae by asexual reproduction. See Cercaria, and Redia.
(b)
Either one of the nurse sharks.
Nurse shark. (Zool.)
(a)
A large arctic shark (Somniosus microcephalus), having small teeth and feeble jaws; called also sleeper shark, and ground shark.
(b)
A large shark (Ginglymostoma cirratum), native of the West Indies and Gulf of Mexico, having the dorsal fins situated behind the ventral fins.
To put to nurse, or To put out to nurse, to send away to be nursed; to place in the care of a nurse.
Wet nurse, Dry nurse. See Wet nurse, and Dry nurse, in the Vocabulary.


verb
Nurse  v. t.  (past & past part. nursed; pres. part. nursing)  
1.
To nourish; to cherish; to foster; as:
(a)
To nourish at the breast; to suckle; to feed and tend, as an infant.
(b)
To take care of or tend, as a sick person or an invalid; to attend upon. "Sons wont to nurse their parents in old age." "Him in Egerian groves Aricia bore, And nursed his youth along the marshy shore."
2.
To bring up; to raise, by care, from a weak or invalid condition; to foster; to cherish; applied to plants, animals, and to any object that needs, or thrives by, attention. "To nurse the saplings tall." "By what hands (has vice) been nursed into so uncontrolled a dominion?"
3.
To manage with care and economy, with a view to increase; as, to nurse our national resources.
4.
To caress; to fondle, as a nurse does.
To nurse billiard balls, to strike them gently and so as to keep them in good position during a series of caroms.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Nurse" Quotes from Famous Books



... small Brands came to howl and tumble about the cottage, they naturally gravitated towards the scullery, which then virtually became the nursery, with a stout old seaman, of the name of Ogilvy, usually acting the part of head nurse. His duties were onerous, by reason of the strength of constitution, lungs, and muscles of the young Brands, whose ungovernable desire to play with that dangerous element from which heat is evolved, undoubtedly qualified them for the honorary title ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... They had been invited for half-past six, and dinner was to be served soon after that time. The last to arrive was the Little Colonel. She came in charge of an old coloured woman, Mom Beck, who had been her mother's nurse as well as her own. The child was so hidden in her wraps when Mom Beck led her up-stairs, that no one could tell how she looked. The boys had been curious to see her, ever since they had heard so many tales of her mischievous pranks. A few minutes later, when ...
— Two Little Knights of Kentucky • Annie Fellows Johnston
... Father and Mother and Nurse, and send Father back soon from his howwid prison in Germany. And God bless 'specially the dear King of SPAIN, who found out about ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 15, 1916 • Various
... a child in a perambulator? Returning to first principles, I call it. You see it's a law of my nature that I must go about. The doctor won't let me go about outside the house, so I go about inside the house. Matilda is the nurse, and I am the baby who will learn to walk some of these days. Are you tired, Matilda? No? Then give me another turn, there's a good creature. Movement, perpetual movement, is a law of Nature. Oh, dear no, doctor; I didn't make that discovery for myself. Some eminent scientific person mentioned ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... house in the city and were to commence housekeeping immediately. The Captain made him a number of presents and seemed much pleased with the arrangement. The day previous to the one set for the marriage, while they were setting their house in order, a man called and enquired for a nurse, pretending he wanted one of us. Mother was absent; he said he would call again, but he never came. On Wednesday evening we attended a protracted meeting. After we had returned home and retired, a loud rap was heard at the door. My Aunt enquired who was ...
— The Story of Mattie J. Jackson • L. S. Thompson


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