nursing

3 definitions found

nursing - Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 :

  Nurse \Nurse\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Nursed; p. pr. & vb. n.
     Nursing.]
     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.
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                  Sons wont to nurse their parents in old age.
                                                    --Milton.
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                  Him in Egerian groves Aricia bore,
                  And nursed his youth along the marshy shore.
                                                    --Dryden.
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     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.
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              By what hands [has vice] been nursed into so
              uncontrolled a dominion?              --Locke.
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     3. To manage with care and economy, with a view to increase;
        as, to nurse our national resources.
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     4. To caress; to fondle, as a nurse does. --A. Trollope.
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     To nurse billiard balls, to strike them gently and so as to
        keep them in good position during a series of caroms.
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  Nursing \Nurs"ing\, a.
     Supplying or taking nourishment from, or as from, the breast;
     as, a nursing mother; a nursing infant.
     [1913 Webster]

nursing - WordNet (r) 2.1 (2005) :

  nursing
      n 1: the work of caring for the sick or injured or infirm
      2: the profession of a nurse
      3: nourishing at the breast [syn: nursing, breast feeding]