Nursing

Part of speech: noun, verb

Pronunciation: /ˈnɝsɪŋ/

Definitions

1. The act of caring for ill or injured people in a medical setting ; feeding an infant with milk directly from the breast
2. Providing professional health care and assistance to patients ; giving nourishment to a newborn by allowing it to suckle
3. Delivering care and treatment to those who are unwell or recovering ; the process of a mother feeding her baby with breast milk

Etymology: The verb "nurse" once meant nothing more than suckling a baby. Its ancestor, Latin "nūtrīx," was the word for a wet nurse, a woman who breastfed another woman's child, and the root "nūtriō" meant "to suckle." Through Late Latin "nūtrīcia" and Old French "norrice," the word reached Middle English as "norice," which described the person paid to feed an infant. The sense of tending the sick grew out of that task of nourishing the vulnerable, and the modern meaning of caring for patients followed. The verb form has a stranger past. Sixteenth-century English spelled it "nusse" or "nuse," and its origin remains uncertain. One suggestion is that it arose from "huss," through a shift in how speakers divided the phrase "an huss" into "a nuss," but this cannot be confirmed.

Synonyms: caregiving, tending, caring, attending, fostering

Antonyms: neglect, abandonment, desertion, disregard, indifference