nurse
noun · verb
Simple meaning
A person involved in providing direct care for the sick.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
nursIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈnɝs
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
informal
Anyone performing this role, regardless of training or profession.
A person involved in providing direct care for the sick
A medical worker performing this role, typically someone trained to provide such care but having credentials and rank below a doctor or physician assistant.
A woman who is the custodian of children
A person (usually a woman) who takes care of other people's children.
figurative
One who, or that which, brings up, rears, causes to grow, trains, or fosters.
verb
transitive
To breastfeed: to feed (a baby) at the breast; to suckle.
intransitive
To breastfeed: to be fed at the breast.
transitive
To care for (someone), especially in sickness; to tend to.
transitive
To tend gently and with extra care.
transitive
To manage or oversee (something) with care and economy.
transitive
To hold closely to one's chest.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Anyone performing this role, regardless of training or profession.
Used this way, nurse is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in everyday conversation and social media or informal writing contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Casual
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Playful
- Usage feel
- Casual and conversational
Where it naturally appears
- Everyday conversation
- Social media/informal writing
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use nurse
- “He nursed his injured back by lying in bed several hours every afternoon.”verb
- “He nursed his cold with Chinese herbs.”verb
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Tap the highlighted word to open its own entry.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
The work of caring for the sick or injured or infirm.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Small bottom-dwelling shark of warm shallow waters on both coasts of North America and South America and from southeast Asia to Australia.
A large decomposing tree trunk that has fallen, usually in a forest.
A registered nurse who has received special training and can perform many of the duties of a physician.
Someone who assists a nurse in tasks that require little formal training.
A vessel fitted with a flexible teat and filled with milk or formula.
Care by a skilled nurse.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
Someone who assists a nurse in tasks that require little formal training.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.