# nurse

Pronunciation: say "NURS" US /nɝs/, UK /nɜːs/

## Noun

1. A person who is involved in caring directly for people who are sick.
   - Simple: A person who helps take care of people who are sick.
   - _The nurse on the night shift checked on every patient in the ward twice an hour._
   - _When her father fell ill, she became his nurse, bathing and feeding him at home for months._
4. A person, usually a woman, employed to care for other people's children.
   - Simple: A person whose job is to take care of other people's children.
   - _The family hired a nurse to look after their three young children._
   - _Each morning the nurse dressed the children and prepared their breakfast._
11. A person or thing that brings up, rears, trains, or fosters growth.
   - Simple: A person or thing that helps something grow, learn, or develop.
   - _The university long served as a nurse of radical ideas._
   - _War, some claim, has been a harsh nurse of invention._
13. A shrub or tree that shelters and protects a young plant while it establishes.
   - Simple: A bigger plant that shelters and protects a young one as it grows.
   - _Pioneer shrubs often serve as a nurse for slower-growing forest trees._
   - _The thorny hedge became a natural nurse for the oak seedlings it sheltered._
14. A slow, bottom-dwelling shark of warm seas; the name is also applied to certain dogfish.
   - Simple: A large, slow shark that often lies still on the bottom of warm seas.
   - _Anglers off the coast sometimes catch a nurse while fishing for grouper._
   - _A large nurse lay motionless in the sandy shallows._

## Verb

2. To care for someone, especially during illness, attending to their needs as they recover.
   - Simple: To take care of someone who is sick or hurt.
   - _The family nursed their grandmother through her long illness._
   - _Aid workers nurse patients in regions with few doctors._
3. To feed a baby with milk directly from the breast; to suckle.
   - Simple: To feed a baby with milk from the breast.
   - _She nursed the infant while rocking gently in the chair._
   - _Some mammals nurse their young for many months._
5. To drink a beverage slowly in order to make it last. *(colloquial)*
   - Simple: To drink something slowly so that it lasts a long time.
   - _She nursed her wine, savoring each small sip._
   - _Regulars nurse their pints long after the conversation has died down._
6. To dwell on and keep alive an emotion, usually a negative one, in one's mind; to brood over it.
   - Simple: To keep thinking about a bad feeling and not let it go.
   - _She nursed a quiet bitterness toward the colleague who had betrayed her._
   - _He tends to nurse every slight until it grows into outright hostility._
7. To tend something gently and with extra care, protecting it as it grows or recovers.
   - Simple: To look after something gently and with great care.
   - _He nursed the injured sapling back to vigor over the summer._
   - _Conservationists nurse rare orchids in carefully controlled greenhouses._
8. To hold someone or something closely and protectively against one's chest.
   - Simple: To hold someone or something close against your chest.
   - _She nursed the wounded bird gently against her chest as she walked._
   - _Mourners nurse framed photographs to their chests at the memorial._
9. To run or watch over something with careful attention, spending or using resources sparingly.
   - Simple: To carefully manage something, like money, so it lasts or grows.
   - _The new director nursed the failing department back to financial health._
   - _Careful owners nurse their resources through every downturn._
10. To feed at the breast, as an infant does.
   - Simple: To drink milk straight from the breast, as a baby does.
   - _The infant nursed every two hours through the night._
   - _Lambs nurse instinctively within minutes of being born._

## Noun

12. A woman who breastfeeds another's child in place of the mother. *(archaic)*
   - Simple: A woman paid to feed another woman's baby with her own breast milk.
   - _The royal infant was placed with a nurse soon after birth._
   - _Each nurse cared for two or three children at once in the foundling home._

## Other meanings

- (verb) To strike billiard balls gently so as to keep them well positioned for a series of shots.
- (noun) A larval stage of certain flukes that produces cercariae asexually inside a host.
- (noun) A lieutenant or first officer who assumes command when the captain is unable to serve.

## Origin

**Meanings 1–13** — From Middle English norice, from Old French norrice, from Late Latin nūtrīcia, based on Latin nūtrīcius ("that which nourishes"), from nūtrīx ("wet nurse") and nūtriō ("to suckle").
**Meaning 14** — Uncertain in origin; an earlier 16th-century form was nusse or nuse. It may come from huss, through the reanalysis of "an huss" as "a nuss."

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/nurse (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).