nurture
/ˈnəːtʃə
/verb [with object]
1Care for and protect (someone or something) while they are growing: Jarrett was nurtured by his parents in a close-knit family...
- They also want to maintain their carefully nurtured relationships with individual solicitors.
- At Mia's Montessori, each child's love of learning is carefully nurtured.
- Doherty took the rural heartlands he has so carefully nurtured over the past four years.
Synonyms
bring up, care for, provide for, take care of, attend to, look after, rear, support, raise, foster, parent, mother, tend;
feed, nourish
rare provender
encourage, promote, stimulate, develop, foster, cultivate, further, advance, boost, forward, contribute to, be conducive to, assist, help, aid, abet, strengthen, advantage, fuel
1.1Help or encourage the development of: my father nurtured my love of art...
- Following the inspiration of Saint Patrick we have to accept their faith has been nurtured in a different culture.
- He had spent his life always being there for me, pushing me to new heights, nurturing great ambitions.
- Support is what is needed to nurture Canadian cinema.
1.2Cherish (a hope, belief, or ambition): for a long time she had nurtured the dream of buying a shop...
- Her current heartthrob is superstar Shah Rukh Khan and she nurtures an ambition to meet up with King Khan.
- I have nurtured this ambition since I was a schoolgirl, but it was 17 years before I got around to achieving it.
- Geddes nurtured the belief that common ground in culture, if used wisely, could do society real, practical good.
noun [mass noun]
1The action or process of nurturing someone or something: the nurture of children...
- These candidates should then be given support, nurture, and a challenge to test whether God is calling them to cross cultural borders with the gospel.
- At stake is not the status of marriage in our society (important though that is) but the safe and sensitive nurture of all our children from whatever home background they come.
- Asleep, he dreamed again and again of a dying child who turned into a wet rag when he tried to comfort it - a terrible, potent image for a self allowed to slip away and powers of nurture never exercised.
Synonyms
encouragement, promotion, fostering, development, cultivation, boosting, furtherance, advancement
1.1Upbringing, education, and environment, contrasted with inborn characteristics as an influence on or determinant of personality: we are all what nature and nurture have made us...Often contrasted with nature.
- So whichever way you stand on the nature nurture debate, Kierkegaard was always likely to turn out a depressive.
- In the nature / nurture debate there's room for both to have their influence.
- Finally, the nature / / nurture debate is addressed throughout the book.
Synonyms
upbringing, bringing up, care, fostering, tending, rearing, raising, training, education
Derivatives
nurturer
- ‘We are the ones that are born nurturers,’ Ms Cravea said.
- Women can put a different aspect to decision-making because they're nurturers of their families.
- The mythologies he is promoting about child abuse - that women are natural nurturers and that the main danger to children is strangers - are the exact opposite of the truth research supports.
Origin
Middle English: from Old French noureture 'nourishment', based on Latin nutrire 'feed, cherish'.
Rhymes
- mothproofer
- moth-wing
- mothy
- motif
- quadraphonically
- quadraphonics
- quadraphony
- quadraplex
- quadrasonic
- quadrat
- quadrate
- quadrate bone
- quadrate muscle
- quadrathlon
- quadratic
- quadratically
- quadratic equation
- quadratic form
- quadratic programming
- quadratrix
- quadrature
- quadrature amplitude modulation
- quadratus
- quadrel
- quadrell