a nurse who takes care of but does not breast-feed another's infant.
Informal. a person who tutors and guides an inexperienced person at work.
First recorded in 1590–1600
First recorded in 1575–85
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
You'll be a dry nurse to a burro, and keep a hospital for infirm puppies, but you will fight game cocks.
From The Octopus : A story of California by Norris, Frank
I might very well be dubbed: "Victor Hugo, Representative of the People and dry nurse."
From The Memoirs of Victor Hugo by Hugo, Victor
What would become of you, I wonder, if I wasn't to take you in to dry nurse?
From Varney the Vampire Or the Feast of Blood by Prest, Thomas Preskett
In answer to this, Archie reminded his friend that on this occasion Jack Stuart would have the advantage of an excellent dry nurse, acknowledged to do very great on such occasions.
From The Claverings by Trollope, Anthony
I seem to need a dry nurse quite as much as my children.
From Julia Ward Howe 1819-1910 by Elliott, Maud Howe
Then Tasso, with his enchanted forests and his other improbabilities; are they more than childish tales? tales, too, not in fancy to be compared with those of that venerable dry-nurse, Mother Bunch.
From The Life of Lord Byron by Galt, John
You are doomed to dry-nurse Martin for life, whether he wants you or no.
From An Unknown Lover by Vaizey, George de Horne, Mrs.
I am not going to dry-nurse a girl at the age of fifty-four.
From Emily Fox-Seton Being "The Making of a Marchioness" and "The Methods of Lady Walderhurst" by Williams, C. D. (Charles D.)
Sir Charles did not approve this: it seemed unreasonable to turn a wet-nurse into a dry-nurse when that office was already occupied by a person her senior and more experienced.
From A Terrible Temptation A Story of To-Day by Reade, Charles
I don't envy Hignett if he has to dry-nurse the Gnome's commander.
From Traffics and Discoveries by Kipling, Rudyard
"I mean, didn't she try to get them dry-nursed by the sirkar in some way?"
From King of the Khyber Rifles by Mundy, Talbot
Mr. Houghton has dry-nursed what father left me, and he has done mighty well with it; but I can't touch it till I'm twenty-five—worse luck!
From The Vehement Flame by Deland, Margaret Wade Campbell
One can't afford to cuddle an old vendetta, as Abishag dry-nursed old King David.
From A Woman Named Smith by Oemler, Marie Conway
Was't some sullen bear dry-nursed thee, Or she-dragon gave thee suck?
From Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote by Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de
In Paris, Rheims, and Aix, where they are wholly dry-nursed, their deaths are 50.3, 63.9, and 80 per cent.
From The Physical Life of Woman: Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother by Napheys, George H. (George Henry)
This was careful dry-nursing for the bantling which had been provided with so comfortable a cradle in the State Department.
From James Madison by Gay, Sydney Howard
Ned said that the Company was able to walk by itself at last, and that he was going to have a long holiday after his dry-nursing of it.
From The Irrational Knot Being the Second Novel of His Nonage by Shaw, Bernard
But, if he nursed his passion, it was a dry-nursing; for he led a lonely, ascetic, and, if it were not for his studies, we might say a savage life.
From The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch by Campbell, Thomas
"Since when have you been dry-nursing rustlers?" snarled Rafe.
From The Rider of Golden Bar by White, William Patterson
"I'm not specially keen on dry-nursing Dan McGrew," Jim remarked plaintively.
From The Shooting of Dan McGrew, A Novel Based on the Famous Poem of Robert Service by Dana, Marvin Hill
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
