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
"Good Heaven!" thought Hamilton, "is it not enough to be dry nurse to a nation?"
From The Conqueror by Atherton, Gertrude Franklin Horn
It was not to be expected that Cecily, because she had given birth to a child, should of a sudden convert herself into a combination of wet and dry nurse, after the common model.
From The Emancipated by Gissing, George
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.
Tom Crauford had the master’s child to dry nurse: he was only two years old: Tom let him fall, not intentionally, but the poor child was a cripple in consequence of it for life.
From Frank Mildmay Or, the Naval Officer by Marryat, Frederick
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.
