nurses

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of nurse.

   Several nurses volunteered to cover the holiday weekend at the clinic.

   The hospital hired a dozen new nurses to ease the staffing shortage.

   Note

   A regular plural that gathers a wide range of carers: credentialed hospital staff, people who look after other people's children, and, in gardening, shrubs or trees that shelter young plants. Figuratively, whatever fosters or rears something can be among its nurses. The same spelling serves the verb's present tense. An object usually marks the verb (she nurses a patient), while a determiner marks the noun (the nurses).

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of nurse.

   The volunteer nurses injured birds back to health in her spare time.

   He still nurses a quiet grudge over the broken promise.

   Note

   Most uses take an object: she nurses a patient, a tight budget, or a drink she wants to last. In the breastfeeding sense the verb can also stand alone, with either party as subject. A mother nurses her baby, and the baby nurses. The slow-drinking use is informal. The spelling it shares with the plural noun is usually settled by what follows, since an object signals the verb.

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