nurse Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun one skilled in caring for young children or the sick (usually under the supervision of a physician)
  2. noun a woman who is the custodian of children
    nursemaid; nanny.
  3. verb try to cure by special care of treatment, of an illness or injury
    • He nursed his cold with Chinese herbs
  4. verb maintain (a theory, thoughts, or feelings)
    harbor; entertain; hold; harbour.
    • bear a grudge
    • entertain interesting notions
    • harbor a resentment
  5. verb serve as a nurse; care for sick or handicapped people
  6. verb treat carefully
    • He nursed his injured back by lying in bed several hours every afternoon
    • He nursed the flowers in his garden and fertilized them regularly
  7. verb give suck to
    wet-nurse; suckle; breastfeed; give suck; lactate; suck.
    • The wetnurse suckled the infant
    • You cannot nurse your baby in public in some places

WordNet

Nurse noun
Etymology
OE. nourse, nurice, norice, OF. nurrice, norrice, nourrice, F. nourrice, fr. L. nutricia nurse, prop., fem. of nutricius that nourishes; akin to nutrix, -icis, nurse, fr. nutrire to nourish. See Nourish, and cf. Nutritious.
Definitions
  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. Burke.
  3. (Naut.) A lieutenant or first officer, who is the real commander when the captain is unfit for his place.
  4. (Zoöl.) (a) A peculiar larva of certain trematodes which produces cercariæ by asexual reproduction. See Cercaria, and Redia. (b) Either one of the nurse sharks.
Nurse transitive verb
Wordforms
imperfect & past participle Nursed ; present participle & verbal noun Nursing
Definitions
  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. Milton.
    Him in Egerian groves Aricia bore, And nursed his youth along the marshy shore. Dryden.
  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." Milton.
    By what hands [has vice] been nursed into so uncontrolled a dominion? Locke.
  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. A. Trollope.

Webster 1913