Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Nursemaid   Listen
Nursemaid

noun
1.
A woman who is the custodian of children.  Synonyms: nanny, nurse.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Nursemaid" Quotes from Famous Books



... in the colonies, bad servants, and unwonted sicknesses, the Captain's tenderness never failed. If the life was rough, the Captain was ready. He had been, by turns, in one strait or another, sick-nurse, doctor, carpenter, nursemaid, and cook to his family, and had, moreover, an idea that nobody filled these offices quite so well as himself. Withal, his very profession kept him neat, well-dressed, and active. In the roughest of their ever-changing quarters he was ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various

... forward, began to prick out a pattern on the leaf she had laid on the wooden seat. She was in the midst of doing it—had indeed decorated two or three—when she found herself turning her head to listen to something. It was a quick, buoyant marching step—not a nursemaid's, not a gardener's, and it was coming towards her corner as if with intention—and she suddenly knew that she was listening as if the intention concerned herself. This was only because there are psychological moments, moods, conditions at once physical ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... three years and a half old, when he lived with Mr. Provis, a carpenter in Warminster. There was at that time an elderly woman and a young girl living there, the former being Mrs. Reed, the wet-nurse, and the latter Mary Provis, who acted as nursemaid. He stayed at the house of Provis until Grace, Sir Hugh's butler, took him away, and placed him at the school of Mr. Hill at Brislington, where he remained for a couple of years, occasionally visiting Colonel Gore and ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous

... nursemaid for the last half hour," Jim said, as they made their way along the pier. "He rescued a curly-haired kid from a watery grave—at least, it would have been in if he hadn't caught it by the hind leg—and after that the kid refused to let ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce

... the widespread dislike of peace is not entirely derived from their prowess; nor does it spring entirely from the nursemaid's love of the red coat and martial gait, though this is on a far nobler plane, and comes much nearer to the heart of things. The gleam of uniforms in a drab world, the upright bearing, the rattle of a kettledrum, the boom of a salute, the murmur of the "Dead March," ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson

... their vistas. are liberal where they look toward the hills. They carry you close to these admirable elevations, which hang over Florence on all sides, and if in the foreground your sense is a trifle perplexed by the white pavements dotted here and there with a policeman or a nursemaid, you have only to reach beyond and see Fiesole turn to violet, on its ample eminence, from the ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James

... The savior!" mocked Sissy, genuflecting sarcastically. "The savior of the family will have you sent to a convent, Split, 'where young ladies are taught to behave properly.' The savior'll get a nursemaid for you, Frank, and you'll have to go about always holding her hand and wearing socks in the English style that'll show ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson

... cried unreasonably for "Yinton" to come and carry him. The boy had recovered, somewhat against expectations, and Jim had thought no more of the matter, except to drop gently and firmly into a gorse bush a fellow who had chaffed him for being a nursemaid. He had been amazed, and greatly embarrassed, by the tears in little "Mrs. Doctor's" eyes as she bade him good-bye. Nothing on earth would have ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce

... all the decorum, of their grandfathers. When I was three years old I had not yet, as I imagine, been promoted beyond a silver spoon of my own wherewith to eat my bread and milk in the nursery; and I feel assured that I was under the immediate care of a nursemaid, as I gobbled up my minced mutton mixed with potatoes and gravy. But at hotel life in the States the adult infant lisps to the waiter for everything at table, handles his fish with epicurean delicacy, is choice in his selection ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope

... out that the two children had scarlet fever. Brown happened to know that Imogene had been exposed to the disease during a surreptitious visit to the cottage of the station agent, whose wife it appears was a close friend of the nursemaid, and whose baby thrived immensely on the rich foods from the Bingle establishment. So the instant the rash appeared, Brown began packing her suitcase and trunk. She tried to get away without letting the other girls into the secret, but they suspected. What might ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon

... representation of this animal by means of a number of breakages; a defect that brought our landlady on the scene. The enchantment of my father's companionship caused me to suffer proportionately in his absence. During that period of solitude, my nursemaid had to order me to play, and I would stumble about and squat in the middle of the floor, struck suddenly by the marvel of the difference between my present and my other home. My father entered into arrangements ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... i.e. we who are "sopisticate" do. The more sensible Arcadians, of course, eat exclusively with their knives. The farming men and boys come in to the table from their work, without their coats and with their shirt-sleeves rolled up above their elbows; and my own nursemaid, and the servant-of-all-work of the house, and any visitors who may look in upon our hostess, sit down with us promiscuously to feed; all which, I confess, makes me a little melancholy. It is nonsense talking about positive equality; these people are sorry ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... you may say that the artist has striven to paint the soul rather than the body. Well, I think it is fair to call Jane Eyre symbolical. Some of the people depicted are very true to life. The old, comfortable, good-humoured housekeeper, Mrs. Fairfax; Bessie the nursemaid; Adele, the little French girl, Mr. Rochester's ward; the two Rivers sisters—they are admirable portraits. But Mr. Rochester, the haughty Baroness Ingram of Ingram Park, Miss Ingram, who says to the footman, "Leave that chatter, blockhead, and do ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson

... cellar. My eye, won't some cook get a rum start when she sees his green eyes a-shinin' at her out of the dark! If he can't get food he's bound to look for it, and mayhap he may chance to light on a butcher's shop in time. If he doesn't, and some nursemaid goes out walkin' or orf with a soldier, leavin' of the hinfant in the perambulator—well, then I shouldn't be surprised if the census is one babby the ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker

... wondering. A nursemaid passed close, balancing a child in a spring-perambulator, saying in a foolish voice, "Wupsey up, wupsey down! Wupsey there!" O'Malley, in the full stream of his mood, waited impatiently till she had gone by. Then, rolling over on his side, he came closer, talking in a lowered tone. I think ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood

... by one hand, Angela by the other, whence he had found them wandering. Disappointment that their owner was a protected lady instead of a nicely-shaped nursemaid whom by this introduction he might add to his recreations, delivered him of stern reproof at the carelessness which had ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson

... Carey, the baby and the baby's little nurse. They proceeded in a body to the overseer's house, where the load was halved. Mary, the baby, and one box were left with Mrs Kelsey (reinforced by the collie puppy and a plate of sugared strawberries); the sailor and the nursemaid, after a few poignant moments, went on to a ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge

... marriage in any way changed him, and the less so since his wife had soon departed to another world, and left behind her two children, whom he did not want, and who were therefore placed in the charge of a good-looking nursemaid. Never at any time could he remain at home for more than a single day, for his keen scent could range over scores and scores of versts, and detect any fair which promised balls and crowds. Consequently in a trice he would be there—quarrelling, and creating disturbances over ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... she asks me to stay home with Joan and Peter to-morrow, while she and Ed go off to the country club, I'm going to say, 'No!' I'm going to say, 'Listen to me, Ed and Marcia. I don't intend to spend the rest of my life toddling children to the park and playing second assistant nursemaid. I'm too old—or too young. I've only got ten years to go, according to the Bible, and I want to have my fun. I've sown. I want to reap. My teeth are pretty good, and so is my stomach. They're better than yours will be at my age, for all your smart new dentists. So ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber

... two chubby arms closed about Hal's neck into the center of the crowd catapulted a frenzied nursemaid who madly rushed up ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett

... on feet or wings, Out they come, all moon-eyed things! In and out they pop and play, Have it all their own wild way, Fly and frolic, scamper, glow; Treat the moon, for all her show, State, and opal diadem, Like a nursemaid watching them. And the nightingale doth snare All the merry tumult rare, All the music and the magic, All the comic and the tragic, All the wisdom and the riot Of the midnight moonlight diet, In a diamond hoop of song, Which he ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald

... cottage, he was brought face to face with one of the common tragedies of a housekeeper's life. The cook and the nursemaid, who also acted as waitress and chambermaid, had indulged in one of their controversies during his absence, and the former had departed, vowing she would never return. Here it was luncheon time and no one to get it! He knew that Bridget would be back ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon

... and I was watching his pottering descent when he was startled, and I was startled, by two cries which rang out simultaneously from above, one of pain and distress from the room he had just left, and one expressive of the utmost glee from the lips of the baby whom the nursemaid was bringing down from ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green

... artillery reared rabbits near their dug-outs, and they've been making themselves omelettes for eighteen months. We are really in danger. Those that only get a bit of it, or only once, aren't in it at all. Otherwise, everybody would be. The nursemaid strolling the streets of Paris would be, too, since there are the Taubes and the Zeppelins, as that pudding-head said that the pal ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse

... an air of intense annoyance.) These constant interruptions put one off so. Oh, yes, I remember. (Resumes rehearsing the part of "Colonel DEBENHAM.") "Nursemaid, take those squalling infants away. I'm surprised at Lady SHORTHORN permitting them in the drawing-room. Wheel them away at once—at once, I say; or I'll make curry-powder ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari Volume 98, January 4, 1890 • Various

... Younger gentlemen, whose god has been otherwhere, have married their housemaids. A Lord Viscount Townshend, who died in 1763 or thereabouts, did so in the nick of time, and left her fifty thousand pounds. Tom Coutts the banker, founder of the great house in the Strand, married his brother's nursemaid, and loved her faithfully for fifty years. She gave him three daughters who all married titles; but she was their ladyships' "dear Mamma" throughout; and Coutts himself saw to it that where he dined she dined also. There's nothing in caste in our ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett



Words linked to "Nursemaid" :   keeper, woman, wet nurse, wetnurse, wet-nurse, mammy, adult female, amah, dry nurse



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com