trans. To serve as wet nurse to, suckle (another woman’s infant). Also transf.
1784. Morn. Chron., 13 April, 4/4, Advt. Wanted, a Child to Wet Nurse, by a Young Woman, with a good breast of milk.
1786. Mrs. A. M. Bennett, Juvenile Indiscr., III. 62. At the house of the woman who had wet-nursed him.
1860. O. W. Holmes, Professor, i. 25. A mythus … Such as Livy told about the wolf that wet-nursed Romnulus and Remus.
b. fig. To treat tenderly or take under special care, as if helpless.
1873. Siliad, 109. A curious youth … Who, ere his whiskers had completely grown, Possessed a comic paper of his own; But though wet-nursed by someone in Debrett, It died quite young.
1891. Telegr. Jrnl., 13 Feb., 205/2. The system of wet-nursing adopted by the Post Office authorities in the case of the telegraph service has not been one of uniform success.
1893. Westm. Gaz., 7 Feb., 6/1. A member of independent spirit—not wet-nursed for party purposes by political gold.
1917. Blackw. Mag., Nov., 584/1. I was wet-nursed by an elderly old buffer of a General.
