/nɜːs/, /nɵːs/, /nəːs/
OriginFrom Middle English norice, from Old French norrice, from Late Latin nūtrīcia, noun based on Latin nūtrīcius (“that which nourishes”), from nūtrīx (“wet nurse”), from nūtriō (“to suckle”).
- informalAnyone performing this role, regardless of training or profession.
“My aunt was my nurse while I recuperated at home from surgery.”
- A medical worker performing this role, typically someone trained to provide such care but having credentials and rank below a doctor or physician assistant.
“The nurse made her rounds through the hospital ward.”
“Francis Urquhart: Right. Mackenzie. Health. No chance of getting him into a demo at a hospital, I suppose?
Tim Stamper: Doesn't go to hospitals any more. Kept getting beaten up by the nurses... I thin”
- A medical worker, such as a registered nurse, having training, credentials, and rank above a nurse assistant.
- A person (usually a woman) who takes care of other people’s children.
“They hired a nurse to care for their young boy.”
- figurativelyOne who, or that which, brings up, rears, causes to grow, trains, or fosters.
“Eton College has been called "the chief nurse of England's statesmen".”
“the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise”
- A shrub or tree that protects a young plant.
- A lieutenant or first officer who takes command when the captain is unfit for his place.
- A larva of certain trematodes, which produces cercariae by asexual reproduction.
- archaicA wet nurse.
- A nurse shark or dogfish.
- transitiveTo breastfeed: to feed (a baby) at the breast; to suckle.
“She believes that nursing her baby will make him strong and healthy.”
- intransitiveTo breastfeed: to be fed at the breast.
- transitiveTo care for (someone), especially in sickness; to tend to.
“She nursed him back to health.”
- transitiveTo tend gently and with extra care.
“She nursed the rosebush and that season it bloomed.”
- transitiveTo manage or oversee (something) with care and economy.
- informal, transitiveTo drink (a beverage) slowly, so as to make it last.
“Rob was nursing a small beer.”
- figuratively, transitiveTo cultivate or persistently entertain (an attitude, usually negative) in one's mind; to brood or obsess over.
“to nurse a grudge”
“If, like me, you have been confined to your home, glued to the news and nursing ever greater anxiety about the state of the world, you have probably become familiar with the sight of the World Health ”
- transitiveTo hold closely to one's chest.
“Would you like to nurse the puppy?”
- transitiveTo strike (billiard balls) gently, so as to keep them in good position during a series of shots.
“It is to our interest to let Lee and Johnston come together, just as a billiard-player would nurse the balls when he has them in a nice place”
Formsnurses(plural) · norice(alternative, obsolete) · nourice(alternative, obsolete) · nourse(alternative, obsolete) · nurses(present, singular, third-person) · nursing(participle, present) · nursed(participle, past) · nursed(past) · Nurses(plural)