foster child

SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR foster child ON THESAURUS.COM

noun

a child raised by someone who is not its natural or adoptive parent.

a needy child, as one living in an impoverished country, supported or aided by contribution to a specific charity.

Nearby words

fossorial, fossula, foster, foster brother, foster care, foster child, foster city, foster daughter, foster father, foster frame, foster home

Origin of foster child

1150–1200; Middle English fostercild

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Examples from the Web for foster child

Clusters, filaments, and voids make up the large-scale structure of the Universe, foster-child of gravity and slow time.
Laniakea: The Milky Way’s Place in the Heavens|Matthew R. Francis|September 7, 2014|DAILY BEAST
On the 18th my foster-child and I expect to leave my little home at Willow Bend, where we have lived since her father's death.
A Speckled Bird|Augusta J. Evans Wilson
A nurse was once captured, and ordered to reveal the hiding-place of her foster-child, now her mistress, or suffer death.
The Birth of the Nation|Mrs. Roger A. Pryor
It is enough for one college that for a year Cromwell was her foster-child.
The Cathedral Towns and Intervening Places of England, Ireland and Scotland:|Thomas W. Silloway

You are Agatha Shaw's only child, therefore to me a foster-child.
The Stolen Singer|Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
Villain as he was, and stained with the blood of her foster-child, her heart warmed toward him—the mother was the mother still!
Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848|Various

British Dictionary definitions for foster child

foster child

noun

a child looked after temporarily or brought up by people other than its natural or adoptive parents

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012