nursery

American  

[nur-suh-ree] / ˈnɜr sə ri /

noun

• nurseries
  plural

1. a room or place set apart for young children.

2. a nursery school or day nursery.

3. a place where young trees or other plants are raised for transplanting, for sale, or for experimental study.

4. any place in which something is bred, nourished, or fostered.

   The art institute has been the nursery of much great painting.

5. any situation, condition, circumstance, practice, etc., serving to breed or foster something.

   Slums are nurseries for young criminals.

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nursery British  

/ ˈnɜːsrɪ /

noun

1. 1. a room in a house set apart for use by children

   2. ( as modifier )

      nursery wallpaper

2. a place where plants, young trees, etc, are grown commercially

3. an establishment providing residential or day care for babies and very young children; crèche

4. short for nursery school

5. anywhere serving to foster or nourish new ideas, etc

6. Also called: nursery cannon.  billiards

   1. a series of cannons with the three balls adjacent to a cushion, esp near a corner pocket

   2. a cannon in such a series

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• prenursery
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• nurseries
  plural

Etymology

Origin of nursery

First recorded in 1350–1400, nursery is from the Middle English word norcery. See nurse, -ery

Explanation

In a nursery, you're going to find a lot of growth — and either babies or plants. The word nurse is a clue to the meaning of nursery: nurses take care of people, and a nursery is a place of caretaking. One kind of nursery is for babies: it's a child's room with a crib and lots of baby toys. The other kind of nursery is for plants: this type of nursery usually has glass walls and a roof, plus everything plants need to be healthy. Nurseries keep plants or babies safe so they can grow.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

nursery nurseries

But the sum is far more than the projected $69 billion Americans are spending in 2026 on nursery, elementary and secondary schools.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 16, 2026

He founded the nursery business in 2021, after spending a month in Israel learning about the industry.

From BBC ● Sep. 4, 2026

Viable seeds will be planted and raised in a nursery until the seedlings can be planted in the grove.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 2, 2026

A former boy-band member has turned his remixes of classic nursery rhymes into a global touring sensation.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 2, 2026

By now she understood that the mood in the nursery had begun to curdle, so to speak, and that the cause had something to do with her shutting of the windows.

From "The Unseen Guest" by Maryrose Wood

A spectacular new image from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope offers a front row view of one of the universe's busiest stellar nurseries.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 5, 2026

French state-owned utility EDF said on Friday it would allocate 80 million euros to equip schools, nurseries and daycare centres with cooling systems to help them cope with future heatwaves.

From Barron's ● Jun. 26, 2026

"We have already published reports and updates on all of the nurseries that we visited – today's action is about identifying improvements that need to happen at a management level within the Bright Horizons group."

From BBC ● Jun. 23, 2026

The study also uncovered the worker bees responsible for creating and maintaining these royal nurseries.

From Science Daily ● Jun. 23, 2026

When El Lider needed volunteers to build nurseries in Villa Clara province, Celia joined a microbrigade, setting tiles and operating a construction lift.

From "Dreaming in Cuban" by Cristina García

Related Words

• playroom
• preschool