nurture

American  

[nur-cher] / ˈnɜr tʃər /

verb (used with object)

• nurtures,
  present (3rd person singular)
• nurtured,
  past participle,  past
• nurturing
  present participle

1. 

   to feed and protect.

   to nurture one's offspring.

2. to support and encourage, as during the period of training or development; foster.

   to nurture promising musicians.

3. to bring up; train; educate.

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noun

1. rearing, upbringing, training, education, or the like.

2. development.

   the nurture of young artists.

3. something that nourishes; nourishment; food.

nurture British  

/ ˈnɜːtʃə /

noun

1. the act or process of promoting the development, etc, of a child

2. something that nourishes

3. biology the environmental factors that partly determine the structure of an organism See also nature

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verb

1. to feed or support

2. to educate or train

Synonym Usage

See nurse.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• nurturer
  noun
• nurturable
  adjective
• nurtureless
  adjective
• unnurtured
  adjective
• well-nurtured
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Participles

• nurturing
  present
• nurtured
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• nurture
  simple
• nurtures
  simple
• have nurtured
  perfect
• has nurtured
  perfect
• am nurturing
  progressive
• are nurturing
  progressive
• is nurturing
  progressive
• have been nurturing
  perfect progressive
• has been nurturing
  perfect progressive

Past

• nurtured
  simple
• had nurtured
  perfect
• was nurturing
  progressive
• were nurturing
  progressive
• had been nurturing
  perfect progressive

Future

• will nurture
  simple
• will have nurtured
  perfect
• will be nurturing
  progressive
• will have been nurturing
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of nurture

First recorded in 1300–50; (noun) Middle English norture, from Middle French, variant of nourriture, from Late Latin nūtrītūra “a nourishing,” equivalent to Latin nūtrīt(us) (past participle of nūtrīre “to feed”) + -ūra noun suffix; see nourish, -ure; (verb) derivative of the noun

Explanation

If you plant a seed, water it daily and give it lots of light, you nurture it until it is ready to be transplanted outside. When you nurture a person or thing, you care for it and help it to grow. After a fight with your friend, you may have to nurture the relationship a little until you're close again. Use the phrase "nature versus nurture" to help you remember the word. Nature is a baby just out of the womb. Nurture is how that baby is raised or taken care of. Once the child is older, you may wonder if its love of reading is nature or nurture — is it natural born or is it because you read to the baby every night.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

nurture nurtures nurtured nurturing

Remember, the information you provide doesn’t have to be deep in order for it to nurture trust.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 17, 2026

Finance Minister Elin Jones said this would be paid for by an increase in rates for the largest businesses to help nurture "thriving high streets" in Welsh communities.

From BBC ● Sep. 14, 2026

"But the brain is not a blank slate that gets trained by experience. It is a mix of nature and nurture, and the nature is that pre-wired architecture."

From Science Daily ● Aug. 31, 2026

Rounds three, four, and five yielded backups and talent to nurture.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 28, 2026

If you slice off part of most established plants—this mature plant can be thought of as the parent—and you nurture this severed portion, it will grow.

From "Counting by 7s" by Holly Goldberg Sloan

"Hey, who knows what's around the corner, but pop music nurtures me... my passion for music is greater than ever."

From BBC ● May 20, 2026

Conventional wisdom now has it that Hollywood no longer creates and nurtures young stars in the way it once did.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 24, 2025

He correctly wagered that allowing the audience to sit with one of his families inside their living space as they sort life challenges nurtures understanding and empathy.

From Salon ● Feb. 6, 2025

Moreover, nature-rich settings bring out “prosocial behavior” — helping, sharing and caring for others — which nurtures human connections.

From Seattle Times ● May 17, 2024

Perhaps it originally represented the important insight that the sky nurtures the Earth; if so, that meaning seems to have been forgotten millennia ago.

From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan

“Through the generational musical voices that he nurtured, he created the soundtrack to all our lives, his legacy has been with us at all our greatest moments.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 8, 2026

A university lab nurtured the computer scientists who are using ingenuity and imitation to chase down Anthropic and OpenAI.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 26, 2026

There's no doubt during the 20 months since his arrival at Villa's Bodymoor Heath training ground that Hemmings has been nurtured in the strict requirements of 'Emery Ball'.

From BBC ● Aug. 18, 2026

This demonstrated that the neuropeptides were not merely associated with caregiving but could actively influence whether an ant nurtured larvae or went searching for food.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 1, 2026

They said that if I nurtured these qualities, I would achieve or even exceed my extraordinary potential, and this wasn’t just a good thing, but a great thing.

From "Confessions of a Murder Suspect" by James Patterson

An amateur gardener is nurturing his giant pumpkin in preparation for an RHS competition later this month.

From BBC ● Sep. 6, 2026

He reduces Bourdain to a zygote who simply needed enough nurturing to become his older, cooler self, when he could, instead, read between the lines to find what makes young Tony special.

From Salon ● Aug. 12, 2026

Complicating matters, he has never been particularly generous or nurturing, and he has no spouse, children or other immediate next of kin.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 5, 2026

They came to us fragile and old, and our nurturing turned back their biological clocks.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 28, 2026

He now made his first appeal to a source he had been carefully nurturing for more than a year.

From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik