wet-nurse
- noun
- /ˈwɛtˌnɜrs/
- Archaic
:
nodriza
- The family hired a wet-nurse to ensure their newborn received proper nourishment.
Examples
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In the past, many wealthy families chose a wet-nurse to breastfeed their infants.
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I'm not being a wet nurse to a... TEEN:
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Another mechanism was sending out children to nurse with wet nurses, and the death rate of wet nurse children was enormously high.
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However, when richer, privileged women enlisted wet nurses, it sometimes resulted in trading one baby's life for another.
Academic text (2007) -
She became a wet-nurse to help support her family while caring for another's child.
Synonyms
3
6.8
A woman who feeds another person's baby with her milk and cares for the baby
A woman who breastfeeds and cares for someone else's baby
A woman who breastfeeds and cares for another family's baby in the home
Surface Forms
Morphology
Etymology
Wet-nurse comes from putting wet and nurse together. It named a woman who fed another person's baby with her own milk, so a wet-nurse is literally 'wet' in the sense of 'having milk' and a 'nurse' as a caregiver.