Definition of nurse

• n. - 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.
• n. - One who, or that which, brings up, rears, causes to grow, trains, fosters, or the like.
• n. - A lieutenant or first officer, who is the real commander when the captain is unfit for his place.
• n. - A peculiar larva of certain trematodes which produces cercariae by asexual reproduction. See Cercaria, and Redia.
• n. - Either one of the nurse sharks.
• v. t. - To nourish; to cherish; to foster
• v. t. - To nourish at the breast; to suckle; to feed and tend, as an infant.
• v. t. - To take care of or tend, as a sick person or an invalid; to attend upon.
• v. t. - 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.
• v. t. - To manage with care and economy, with a view to increase; as, to nurse our national resources.
• v. t. - To caress; to fondle, as a nurse does.