Source : Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

Nurse \Nurse\, n. [OE. nourse, nurice, norice, OF. nurrice,
   norrice, nourrice, F. nourrice, fr. L. nutricia nurse, prop.,
   fem. of nutricius that nourishes; akin to nutrix, -icis,
   nurse, fr. nutrire to nourish. See {Nourish}, and cf.
   {Nutritious}.]
   1. One who nourishes; a person who supplies food, tends, or
      brings up; as:
      (a) A woman who has the care of young children;
          especially, one who suckles an infant not her own.
      (b) A person, especially a woman, who has the care of the
          sick or infirm.

   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.