Sons wont to nurse their parents in old age.
--Milton.
Him in Egerian groves Aricia bore, And nursed
his youth along the marshy shore. --Dryden.
2. 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. ``To nurse the saplings tall.'' --Milton.
By what hands [has vice] been nursed into so
uncontrolled a dominion? --Locke.
3. To manage with care and economy, with a view to increase;
as, to nurse our national resources.
4. To caress; to fondle, as a nurse does. --A. Trollope.
{To nurse billiard balls}, to strike them gently and so as to
keep them in good position during a series of caroms.
2. One who, or that which, brings up, rears, causes to grow,
trains, fosters, or the like.
The nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise.
--Burke.
3. (Naut.) A lieutenant or first officer, who is the real
commander when the captain is unfit for his place.
4. (Zo["o]l.)
(a) A peculiar larva of certain trematodes which produces
cercari[ae] by asexual reproduction. See {Cercaria},
and {Redia}.
(b) Either one of the nurse sharks.
{Nurse shark}. (Zo["o]l.)
(a) A large arctic shark ({Somniosus microcephalus}),
having small teeth and feeble jaws; -- called also
{sleeper shark}, and {ground shark}.
(b) A large shark ({Ginglymostoma cirratum}), native of
the West Indies and Gulf of Mexico, having the dorsal
fins situated behind the ventral fins.
{To put to nurse}, or {To put out to nurse}, to send away to
be nursed; to place in the care of a nurse.
{Wet nurse}, {Dry nurse}. See {Wet nurse}, and {Dry nurse},
in the Vocabulary.