nursery

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A place where nursing (“breastfeeding”) or the raising of children is carried on.

   As soon as she was alone and the carriage had been driven well away from the door, Mrs. Trevelyan left the drawing-room and went up to the nursery. As she entered she clothed her face with her sweetest smile. "How is his own mother's dearest, dearest, darling duck?" she said, putting out her arms and taking the boy from the nurse.

2. 2
   noun

   A place where anything is fostered and growth promoted.

   [S]ince for the great deſire I had To ſee faire Padua, nurſerie of Arts, I am arriu'd for fruitfull Lombardie, The pleaſant garden of great Italy.

3. 3
   noun

   Something which educates and nurtures.

   Commerce is the nursery of seamen.

4. 4
   noun

   The act of nursing or rearing.

   I lou'd her moſt, and thought to ſet my reſt / On her kind nurcery, [...]

5. 5
   noun

   a building with glass walls and roof

6. 6
   noun

   a child's room for a baby

7. 7
   noun

   Ellipsis of nursery cannon (“a carom shot involving balls that are very close together”).

8. 8
   noun

   Someone or something that is nursed; a nursling.

Etymology

From Middle English noricerie, norserye (“children's nursery; state of being fostered or nursed; education, upbringing”) [and other forms], from Old French norricerie, nourricerie, from norrice, nourrice (modern French nourrice (“childminder, nanny; wet nurse”)) + -erie (suffix forming feminine nouns). Norrice and nourrice are derived from Late Latin nūtrīcia (“wet nurse”), from Latin nūtrīcius (“that nurses or suckles; nourishing”), from nūtriō (“to breastfeed, nurse, suckle”), possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *(s)neh₂- (“to flow”). The English word may be analysed as nourice, nur…