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From: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

 Nurse, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Nursed p. pr. & vb. n. Nursing.]
 1. To nourish; to cherish; to foster; as: (a) To nourish at the breast; to suckle; to feed and tend, as an infant. (b) To take care of or tend, as a sick person or an invalid; to attend upon.
    Sons wont to nurse their parents in old age.   --Milton.
 Him in Egerian groves Aricia bore,
 And nursed his youth along the marshy shore.   --Dryden.
 2. To bring up; to raise, by care, from a weak or invalid condition; to foster; to cherish; -- applied to plants, animals, and to any object that needs, or thrives by, attention. “To nurse the saplings tall.”
    By what hands [has vice] been nursed into so uncontrolled a dominion?   --Locke.
 3. To manage with care and economy, with a view to increase; as, to nurse our national resources.
 4. To caress; to fondle, as a nurse does.
 To nurse billiard balls, to strike them gently and so as to keep them in good position during a series of caroms.