- Nurse
- Nurse Nurse (n[^u]rs), n. [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}.]
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.
[1913 Webster]
2. One who, or that which, brings up, rears, causes to grow, trains, fosters, or the like. [1913 Webster]
The nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise. --Burke. [1913 Webster]
3. (Naut.) A lieutenant or first officer, who is the real commander when the captain is unfit for his place. [1913 Webster]
4. (Zo["o]l.) (a) A peculiar larva of certain trematodes which produces cercari[ae] by asexual reproduction. See {Cercaria}, and {Redia}. (b) Either one of the nurse sharks. [1913 Webster]
{Nurse shark}. (Zo["o]l.) (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. [1913 Webster]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English. 2000.
