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 must stop the nursing, and keep the woman here as a dry nurse, in order that she may not go away to carry the disease elsewhere.
From Damaged Goods; the great play "Les avaries" by Brieux, novelized with the approval of the author by Brieux, Eugène
“I don’t mean a dry nurse, you know, old chappie, though you said, you were ‘dry’ just now,” replied Larkyns, laughing at his own joke.
From Crown and Anchor Under the Pen'ant by Greene, John B.
See, here, Wiggle-and-Skip," I says, "you know that it ain't the nature of a real man to play dry nurse to a dog in public.
From The Four Million by Henry, O.
I seem to need a dry nurse quite as much as my children.
From Julia Ward Howe 1819-1910 by Elliott, Maud Howe
Consequently I was the more surprised at the disrespectful superciliousness of their Fidus Achates or dry nurse, who, stretching himself upon his stomach in the prow, did shout counsels of perfection at his receding pupils.
From Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. by Anstey, F.
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.
