Nurse

1. To caress; to fondle, as a nurse does.
2. Either one of the nurse sharks.
3. To nourish at the breast; to suckle; to feed and tend, as an infant.
4. 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.
5. To nourish; to cherish; to foster
6. To manage with care and economy, with a view to increase; as, to nurse our national resources.
7. 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.
8. One who, or that which, brings up, rears, causes to grow, trains, fosters, or the like.
9. To take care of or tend, as a sick person or an invalid; to attend upon.
10. A lieutenant or first officer, who is the real commander when the captain is unfit for his place.
11. A peculiar larva of certain trematodes which produces cercariae by asexual reproduction. See Cercaria, and Redia.