Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A woman who suckles another woman's child.
  • noun One who treats another with excessive care or solicitude.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A woman employed to suckle the infant of another.
  • To act as a wet-nurse to; suckle.
  • Hence To coddle as a wet-nurse does: treat with the tenderness shown to an infant.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • A nurse who suckles a child, especially the child of another woman. Cf. dry nurse.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A woman hired to suckle another woman's child.
  • noun figuratively, by extension Someone who treats someone else with excessive care.
  • verb transitive To act as a wet nurse (in either sense.)

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a woman hired to suckle a child of someone else
  • noun a woman hired to suckle a child of someone else
  • verb give suck to
  • noun a woman hired to suckle a child of someone else

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word wet nurse.

Examples

    Sorry, no example sentences found.

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.