Nurse

Part of speech: noun, verb

Pronunciation: /nɜːs/

Definitions

1. A person trained to care for the sick or infirm, a woman employed to care for children, and to feed or tend to someone with attention and kindness
2. An individual qualified to provide medical care and support to patients, a woman responsible for child care, and the act of nurturing or fostering growth in someone or something
3. A healthcare professional who assists in medical treatment and patient care, a woman involved in raising or looking after children, and to feed or hold a baby or a hurt person with gentle care

Etymology: The most striking twist here is the "an nurse" problem. Middle English "norice" came from Old French "norrice," which descends from Late Latin "nūtrīcia," a noun built on Latin "nūtrīx," meaning "wet nurse," itself from "nūtriō," "to suckle." So the word's core meaning has always been about feeding a child, long before it described any hospital ward. Its later form points to a small grammatical accident. In the 16th century the word appeared as "nusse" or "nuse," and one proposed explanation is that speakers heard "an huss" and reanalysed it as "a nuss," with the initial n moving from the article onto the noun. This is only a possibility, not a settled account, and the origin of "huss" itself is unclear. The word's shift from wet nurse to general carer followed naturally from its original sense of nourishing and tending a dependent person. Once the Latin root carried the idea of nourishment, extending it to tending the sick was a short step.

Synonyms: caregiver, nurturer, sister