Nursery

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈnɜːsəɹi/

Definitions

1. A room or facility designed for the care and early development of young children, or a place where plants and seedlings are grown for transplanting or sale
2. A space specifically intended for the cultivation and care of young children or for the growing of plants and trees for sale or planting elsewhere
3. A facility or room dedicated to looking after infants and toddlers ; an area where young plants and trees are nurtured for future planting

Etymology: The word "nursery" is built from "nurse" and the suffix "-ery," which forms nouns meaning "place of." Its ancestor is a Late Latin word, "nūtrīcia," meaning "wet nurse," a woman hired to suckle another's child. That term passed into Old French as "norrice" or "nourrice," which still survives in modern French, where "nourrice" means a childminder or nanny. French then added its own suffix "-erie," giving "nourricerie," a place or state of nursing, and this reached Middle English in forms such as "noricerie" and "norserye." Notice that the earliest English senses were not about gardens at all. The word originally meant the care and upbringing of a child, or a place where children were fostered. The plant sense, a place for raising young trees and shrubs for sale or transplanting, came later and is the one most people now meet in garden centres. The room sense for young children developed alongside it, so the word has always been tied to the idea of tending something young until it is ready to grow on its own.

Synonyms: childcare, kindergarten, daycare