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nursery

noun
/ˈnɜːsəɹi/UK/ˈnɝsəɹi/US

Etymology

From Middle English noricerie, norserye (“children's nursery; state of being fostered or nursed; education, upbringing”) [and other forms], from Old French norricerie, nourricerie, from norrice, nourrice (modern French nourrice (“childminder, nanny; wet nurse”)) + -erie (suffix forming feminine nouns). Norrice and nourrice are derived from Late Latin nūtrīcia (“wet nurse”), from Latin nūtrīcius (“that nurses or suckles; nourishing”), from nūtriō (“to breastfeed, nurse, suckle”), possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *(s)neh₂- (“to flow”). The English word may be analysed as nourice, nurse + -ery (suffix forming nouns meaning ‘place of’).

  1. derived from *(s)neh₂-✻ — “to flow”
  2. derived from nūtrīcius — “that nurses or suckles; nourishing”
  3. derived from nūtrīcia — “wet nurse”
  4. derived from norricerie
  5. inherited from noricerie

Definitions

  1. A place where nursing (“breastfeeding”) or the raising of children is carried on.

  2. A place where anything is fostered and growth promoted.

    • [S]ince for the great deſire I had To ſee faire Padua, nurſerie of Arts, I am arriu'd for fruitfull Lombardie, The pleaſant garden of great Italy.
    • Playes are the nurseries of vice, the bawd, / That thorow the senses steales our hearts abroad, / Tainting our eares with obscæne bawdery, / Lascivious words, and wanton ribaulry.
    • Nudgee College is regarded as the greatest rugby nursery in Queensland, with the boys in the blue-and-white butcher's stripes winning more Greater Public School rugby premierships than any other team.

  3. Something which educates and nurtures.

    • Commerce is the nursery of seamen.
    • The Apoſtles in their travails took ſome choice, and hopeful perſons to accompany them, to Miniſter unto them, and obſerve their waies, who were a kind of ſeminary, or nurſery of Apoſtles, planted, with deſigned ſucceſſors.
  4. ›+ 3 more definitions

    1. Ellipsis of nursery cannon (“a carom shot involving balls that are very close together”).

    2. Someone or something that is nursed

      Someone or something that is nursed; a nursling.

    3. The act of nursing or rearing.

      • I lou'd her moſt, and thought to ſet my reſt / On her kind nurcery, [...]

The neighborhood

Derived

animal nursery, day nursery, night nursery, nurserydom, nursery finance, nurseryfish, nurseryful, nurserymaid, nurseryman, nursery nurse, nurseryperson, nursery pudding, nursery rhyme, nursery school, nursery slope, nurseryware, nursery web spider, nurserywoman, paleonursery, prenursery, stellar nursery, workplace nursery

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for nursery. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA