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

All she remembered from her early childhood in Arizona were snippets of the nursery rhymes “Did You Ever See a Lassie?” and “The Bear Went Over the Mountain.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 7, 2026

True, in the nearly two decades that she’s been creating plush figures, she’s produced charmingly minimalistic foxes, cats and buffalo fit for a nursery.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 6, 2026

A coral nursery is providing a faint glimmer of hope and has even seen the return of plankton-feeding fish.

From Barron's ● Oct. 4, 2026

The couple have since taken Noah out of nursery, and said several other pupils have also been withdrawn as a result of the incident.

From BBC ● Oct. 2, 2026

The unanimous Incorrigibles ran to the nursery window, where the long branch of the elm reached out to them, just on the other side of the glass.

From "The Long-Lost Home" by Maryrose Wood

Some longtime citrus growers and nurseries have set up plots of land where researchers can experiment on real trees, and gather data to help fight the disease.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 19, 2026

He began opening small nurseries, staffed by volunteers.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 19, 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

Ofsted served Bright Horizons, which operates 247 nurseries, a compliance notice after checks between October 2025 and June identified "significant weaknesses in organisational safeguarding leadership, governance, oversight and practice".

From BBC ● Jun. 23, 2026

In the nurseries, the Elementary Class Consciousness lesson was over, the voices were adapting future demand to future industrial supply.

From "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley

Related Words

• playroom
• preschool