From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:
Nurse \Nurse\ (n[^u]rs), n. [OE. nourse, nurice, norice, OF.
nurrice, norrice, nourrice, F. nourrice, fr. L. nutricia
nurse, prop., fem. of nutricius that nourishes; akin to
nutrix, -icis, nurse, fr. nutrire to nourish. See {Nourish},
and cf. {Nutritious}.]
1. 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.
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2. One who, or that which, brings up, rears, causes to grow,
trains, fosters, or the like.
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The nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise.
--Burke.
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3. (Naut.) A lieutenant or first officer, who is the real
commander when the captain is unfit for his place.
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4. (Zool.)
(a) A peculiar larva of certain trematodes which produces
cercariae by asexual reproduction. See {Cercaria}, and
{Redia}.
(b) Either one of the nurse sharks.
[1913 Webster]
{Nurse shark}. (Zool.)
(a) A large arctic shark ({Somniosus microcephalus}),
having small teeth and feeble jaws; -- called also
{sleeper shark}, and {ground shark}.
(b) A large shark ({Ginglymostoma cirratum}), native of
the West Indies and Gulf of Mexico, having the dorsal
fins situated behind the ventral fins.
{To put to nurse}, or {To put out to nurse}, to send away to
be nursed; to place in the care of a nurse.
{Wet nurse}, {Dry nurse}. See {Wet nurse}, and {Dry nurse},
in the Vocabulary.
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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:
Wet nurse \Wet" nurse`\
A nurse who suckles a child, especially the child of another
woman. Cf. {Dry nurse}.
[1913 Webster]
From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]:
wet nurse
n 1: a woman hired to suckle a child of someone else [syn: {wet
nurse}, {wet-nurse}, {wetnurse}, {amah}]
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