wet
34
8.2
- adjective
- /wɛt/
:
lactante
- By becoming a wet-nurse, a subordinate may increase her chances of being tolerated in the group.
- a wet nurse
- wet nursing
Examples
-
You've been a wet nurse for 40 years?
-
I'm not the wet nurse.
-
I purchased a wet nurse for him, yesterday.
-
Kind neighbors found a wet nurse for you, and I took to my bed.
Fiction book (1997) -
The old cow, the one used as a wet nurse to the calves, was missing.
Fiction book (1997) -
Another mechanism was sending out children to nurse with wet nurses, and the death rate of wet nurse children was enormously high.
-
A practice that continued into the early twentieth century was wet-nursing, a practice demanded in particular by the rich.
Fiction book (2001) -
However, when richer, privileged women enlisted wet nurses, it sometimes resulted in trading one baby's life for another.
Academic text (2007) -
The farmer kept a wet nurse for the newborn lambs to ensure they received adequate nourishment.
-
During the meeting, it was reported that the wet nurse would help care for the sick infants in the village.
Synonyms
1
5.8
Making milk in the body for young animals
About a mother animal making milk
Antonyms
Idioms
- Archaic
To be extremely tired and worn after hard work or rough treatment
Compounds
- Specialized
A serious lung illness in which fluid and swelling make breathing hard, often after breathing in chemical fumes
- Specialized
A small tool with a bulb covered in a wet cloth used to measure humidity
Surface Forms
Etymology
Wet has been used to mean 'producing milk' because of the phrase wet nurse, a woman who feeds a baby with her milk, so animals or women called wet were 'with milk'. That's why a wet cow or ewe is ready to be milked.