foster
adjEtymology
From Middle English foster, from Old English fōstor (“food, sustenance”), from Proto-West Germanic *fōstr, from Proto-Germanic *fōstrą (“nourishment, food”). Cognate with Middle Dutch voester (“nursemaid”), Middle Low German vôster (“food”), Old Norse fóstr (“nurturing, education, alimony, child support”), Danish foster (“fetus”), Swedish foster (“fetus”).
Definitions
Providing parental care to children not related to oneself.
- foster parents
Receiving such care.
- a foster child
Related by such care.
- We are a foster family.
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A foster parent.
- Some fosters end up adopting.
The care given to another
The care given to another; guardianship.
To nurture or bring up offspring, or to provide similar parental care to an unrelated…
To nurture or bring up offspring, or to provide similar parental care to an unrelated child.
- Some ſay that Rauens foſter forlorne children, / The whilſt their owne birds famiſh in their neſts: / Oh be to me though thy hard hart ſay no, / Nothing ſo kinde but ſomething pittiful.
To promote the development of something
To promote the development of something; to cultivate and grow a thing.
- Our company fosters an appreciation for the arts.
- A flower beat with rain and wind, Which once she foster’d up with care
- And Time, which is the hound of Sish, devoured all things; and Sish sent up the ivy and fostered weeds, and dust fell from the hand of Sish and covered stately things.
To nurse or cherish something.
To be nurtured or trained up together.
- There Florimell, in her first ages flowre, And passing beautie did eftsoones reveale, Was fostered by those Graces
A forester.
- A griesly Foster forth did rush.
An English surname originating as an occupation, variant of Forster.
- The Mets got that four-run cushion in the seventh when George Foster stepped in as a pinch-hitter and hit a two-run homer for the 5-1 final.
A male given name transferred from the surname.
A placename
The neighborhood
- antonymhamperantonym(s) of “cultivate and grow”
Derived
fosteress, fostership, cofostered, cross-foster, fosterable, fosterage, foster brother, foster care, foster-child, foster child, fosterer, foster fail, foster family, foster father, foster home, fosterhood, fostering, fosteringly, fosterling, fosterment, foster mother, foster parent, foster sibling, foster sister, foster up, nonfostered, unfostered, Foster County, Foster Kennedy syndrome, Foster North, Mount Foster, pseudo-Foster Kennedy syndrome G. Rapids
Vish — recursive loop
A definitional loop anchored at foster. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.
A definitional loop anchored at foster. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.
7 hops · closes at foster
curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.
sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA