dry nurse
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English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
To distinguish from a wet nurse, who suckles a baby.
Noun[edit]
dry nurse (plural dry nurses)
- (chiefly historical) A nurse who takes care of a baby, but does not breastfeed.
- Coordinate term: wet nurse
- The family found a dry nurse to take care of the infant.
- (nautical, slang, archaic) An inferior officer who carries on the duty on board ship, due to the captain's ignorance of seamanship.
Translations[edit]
a nurse who attends and feeds a child by hand
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Verb[edit]
dry nurse (third-person singular simple present dry nurses, present participle dry nursing, simple past and past participle dry nursed)
- To feed, attend, and bring up without suckling.
- (nautical, slang, archaic) Of an inferior officer: to carry on the duty on board ship, due to the captain's ignorance of seamanship.
References[edit]
- “dry nurse”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
- (nautical slang): John Camden Hotten (1873) The Slang Dictionary