Word
nursery
Phoneticsnurs·ery
US/ˈnɝsɝi/
UK/nˈɜːsəɹi/
Definitions
01childcare centre
n. a place where young children are cared for while their parents are at work.
n. an establishment providing day care for children who are not yet old enough to attend primary school.
“She drops her daughter off at the nursery every morning before heading to the office.”
“The local council has increased funding for community nurseries to ensure that working parents have access to affordable early childhood education.”
British English
Synonyms
02baby's bedroom
n. a room in a house that is specially designed for a baby or small child.
n. a room within a private residence set apart for the use of an infant or young children.
“They spent the weekend painting the nursery a soft yellow for the new baby.”
“The interior designer suggested installing blackout curtains in the nursery to help the infant maintain a consistent sleep schedule during the bright summer months.”
Synonyms
03plant garden
n. a place where plants and trees are grown and sold to the public.
n. a commercial establishment where plants are propagated and grown to a usable size for sale to gardeners or for use in landscaping.
“We went to the local nursery to buy some rose bushes for the front garden.”
“The wholesale nursery specialises in native shrubs that are drought-resistant and suitable for the local climate.”
Synonyms
04place of growth
n. a place or situation that helps something new to grow or develop.
n. a place, person, or thing that fosters, nurtures, or promotes the growth and development of something else.
“The small university became a nursery for many great scientific ideas.”
“Historians often describe the coffee houses of the eighteenth century as a nursery for radical political thought and intellectual debate.”
Literary
Synonyms
05billiards shot
n. a type of shot in the game of billiards where the balls are kept very close together.
n. a series of carom shots in which the balls are kept in close proximity to facilitate a high score.
“The professional player maintained control of the table with a perfect nursery shot.”
“Mastering the nursery cannon requires immense delicacy of touch to keep the object balls from separating across the baize.”
Technical
Synonyms
Real-World Examples
“Instead, he resigned himself to renting a small plot in Deir el-Balah, where he has established a nursery and greenhouse to grow tomatoes, eggplants and peppers.” “One couple, who asked not to be named, said their son had started in nursery class and hoped he would have been able to stay on.” 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, nurse + -ery (suffix forming nouns meaning ‘place of’).
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
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englishreference.com/q/nursery