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.
I seem to need a dry nurse quite as much as my children.
From Julia Ward Howe 1819-1910 by Elliott, Maud Howe
He and his dry nurse, Baker, who'd promptly arrived from the bunk house, stumped straight back to the assay office with Macartney to fuss over the men who'd been killed.
From The La Chance Mine Mystery by Gage, George W.
"Am I fated always to be the dry nurse of an embryo faction!" thought Vivian; and he watched earnestly the countenance of the Prince.
From Vivian Grey by Disraeli, Benjamin, Earl of Beaconsfield
A dry nurse must be found at once, a nurse competent to take every precaution and give the child every chance.
From Damaged Goods; the great play "Les avaries" by Brieux, novelized with the approval of the author by Brieux, Eugène
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
With a Konigseck to dry-nurse him, may not Royal Highness, luck favoring, do very well?
From History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 15 by Carlyle, Thomas
I’m not going to drive bullocks, or dry-nurse a flock of sheep, for any man.
From Lost Lenore The Adventures of a Rolling Stone by Beach, Charles A.
It looks as if Mr Brass Hat over there is going to dry-nurse me.
From On the Heels of De Wet by James, Lionel
"What else besides being dry-nurse to the king of the Amalekites?"
From Jimgrim and Allah's Peace by Mundy, Talbot
Brighteye listened intently to the faint, unmistakable family noises issuing therefrom, and then, like a thoughtful dry-nurse, went off to find for his mate a tender white root of horse-tail grass.
From Creatures of the Night A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain by Rees, Alfred Wellesley
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
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
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
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)
"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
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
"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
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
"Since when have you been dry-nursing rustlers?" snarled Rafe.
From The Rider of Golden Bar by White, William Patterson
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
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.
