資料來源 : Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

Nurse \Nurse\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Nursed}; p. pr. & vb. n.
   {Nursing}.]
   1. To nourish; to cherish; to foster; as:
      (a) To nourish at the breast; to suckle; to feed and tend,
          as an infant.
      (b) To take care of or tend, as a sick person or an
          invalid; to attend upon.

                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.