[f. FOSTER v. + -ER1.]
1. One who nurses and brings up (a child); a nurse, foster-parent; esp. with reference to the custom of FOSTERAGE.
1589. Greene, Menaphon (Arb.), 48. What sparkes they haue of inconstancie, they drawe from their female fosterers, as the Sea dooth ebbes and tides from the Moone.
1612. Davies, Why Ireland, etc. (1787), 135. In Ireland; where they put away all their children to fosterers: the potent and rich men selling, the meaner sort buying the alterage of their children.
1747. W. Harris, in Southey, Comm.-Pl. Bk., Ser. II. 362. If any love or faith is to be found among the Irish, you must look for it among the fosterers and their foster-children.
a. 1873. Lytton, Pausanias, 81. My parents then owned me; but still you were my fosterer, my saviour, my more than father.
fig. a. 1571. Jewel, On 1 Thess. (1611), 153. It [peace] is the Nurse and fosterer of the Church of God.
1836. Lytton, Athens (1837), II. 577.
| Fountains and Rivers, and ye Trojan Plains, | |
| I loved ye as my fosterers,—fare ye well! |
2. One who cherishes or cultivates (a plant, etc.).
1628. Prynne, Love-lockes, 27. All our Impudent, Ruffianly, and Shamelesse Loue-locke fosterers.
1871. M. Collins, Mrq. & Merch., II. vi. 167. I don’t pretend to guess whether she prefers the fosterer of flowers or the smiter of steel.
3. A patron, protector, favorer (of persons or things); one who, or something which, promotes or encourages the growth of (a feeling, an institution, etc.).
1581. Sidney, Apol. Poetrie (Arb.), 54. Dooth not knowledge of Law, whose end is, to euen and right all things being abused, grow the crooked fosterer of horrible iniuries?
1586. J. Hooker, Girald. Irel., in Holinshed, II. 132/1. Hauing rid awaie the most notable offenders and their fosterers, the whole prouince rested in good quietnesse and in dutifull obedience to hir maiestie and hir lawes.
1659. Rushw., Hist. Coll., I. 616. His Mother was a Recusant, and a fosterer of Recusants.
1691. Wood, Ath. Oxon., I. 819. Being found unfit to govern a College, because he was a fosterer of faction, he resign’d.
1837. Whewell, Hist. Induct. Sc. (1857), I. 210. At this period the Arabs became the fosterers and patrons of philosophy rather than the Greeks.
1848. Lytton, Harold, IV. vii. His character, as the foe of all injustice, and the fosterer of all that were desolate, was known to yon pale-eyed widow, and yon trembling orphan.
4. Anglo-Irish. A foster-brother.
1735. Swift, Lett. (1766), II. 217. When I had credit for some years at court, I provided for above fifty people in both kingdoms, of which, not one was a relation. I have neither followers, nor fosterers, nor dependers.
1828. C. Croker, Fairy Leg., II. 238. He has an eye on the farm this long time for a fosterer of his own.
