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be necessitated; -- expressing either physical or moral necessity; as, a man must eat for nourishment; we must submit to the laws.

One who nourishes; a person who supplies food, tends, or brings up; as: (a) A woman who has the care of young children; especially, one who suckles an infant not her own. (b) A person, especially a woman, who has the care of the sick or infirm.

Supplying or taking nourishment from, or as from, the breast; as, a nursing mother; a nursing infant.

The act of nourishing or nursing; thender care; education; training. A man neither by nature nor by nurture wise. Milton.

Nutritious; nourishing; promoting growth. -- n.

That which nourishes; anything which promotes growth and repairs the natural waste of animal or vegetable life; food; aliment. The stomach returns what it has received, in strength and nutriment diffused into all parts of the body. South.

That which nourishes; nutriment. Fixed like a plant, on his peculiar spot, To draw nutrition, propagate, and rot. Pope.

Nourishing; promoting growth, or preventing decay; alimental. -- Nu*tri"tious*ly, adv. -- Nu*tri"tious*ness, n.

Of or pertaining to nutrition; as, the nutritive functions; having the quality of nourishing; nutritious; nutrimental; alimental; as, nutritive food or berries. Nutritive plasma. (Biol.) See Idioplasma. -- Nutritive polyp (Zoöl.), any one of the zooids of a compound hydroid, or coral, which has a mouth and digestive c…

Nutrition; nourishment. [Obs.] Harvey.

The means of nutriment to animals or plants; food; nourishment; hence, that which feeds or sustains, as fuel for a fire; that upon which the mind or soul is nourished; as, intellectual pabulum.

Nourishment or support from official patronage; as, treasury pap. [Colloq. & Contemptuous]

A plant obtaining nourishment immediately from other plants to which it attaches itself, and whose juices it absorbs; -- sometimes, but erroneously, called epiphyte.

Of or pertaining to parasites; living on, or deriving nourishment from, some other living animal or plant. See Parasite, 2 & 3. Parasitic gull, Parasitic jager. (Zoöl.) See Jager. -- Par`a*sit"ic*al*ly, adv. -- Par`a*sit"ic*al*ness, n.

Food; nourishment. [Obs.] Toads and frogs his pasture poisonous. Spenser.

The art of nourishing children properly.

e of unbolted rye, which forms the chief food of the Westphalian peasants. It is acid but nourishing.

That which resembles a root in position or function, esp. as a source of nourishment or support; that from which anything proceeds as if by growth or development; as, the root of a tooth, a nail, a cancer, and the like. Specifically:

Diseased or affected with scrofula. Scrofulous persons can never be duly nourished. Arbuthnot. -- Scorf"u*lous*ly, adv. -- Scrof"u*lous*ness, n.

ontent against the government, or of resistance to lawful authority. In soothing them, we nourish 'gainst our senate The cockle of rebellion, insolence, sedition. Shak. Noisy demagogues who had been accused of sedition. Macaulay.