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The refuse whale blubber, used as a manure, and in the manufacture of Prussian blue. Ure.

Feudal tenure; the feudal system. See Feudality. Burke.

That which renders fertile; a general name for commercial manures, as guano, phosphate of lime, etc.

A free and gratuitous right to lands made to one for service to be performed by him; a tenure where the vassal, in place of military services, makes a return in grain or in money. Burrill.

hereditarily, rendering to his superior such duties and services as belong to military tenure, etc., the property of the soil always remaining in the lord or superior; a fief; a fee.

Of or pertaining to feuds, fiefs, or feels; as, feudal rights or services; feudal tenures.

The act of reducing to feudal tenure.

To reduce toa feudal tenure; to conform to feudalism.

Held by, or pertaining to, feudal tenure.

Held from another on some conditional tenure; as, a feudatory title. Bacon.

Injured as by fire; burned; -- said of manure which has lost its goodness and acquired an ashy hue in consequence of heat generated by decomposition.

Fixedness; as, fixity of tenure; also, that which is fixed.

To nurse to life or activity; to cherish and promote by excitements; to encourage; to abet; to instigate; -- used often in a bad sense; as, to foment ill humors. Locke. But quench the choler you foment in vain. Dryden. Exciting and fomenting a religious rebellion. Southey.

To treat or handle with tenderness or in a loving manner; to caress; as, a nurse fondles a child.

of artificial heat. Forcing bed or pit, a plant bed having an under layer of fermenting manure, the fermentation yielding bottom heat for forcing plants; a hotbed. -- Forcing engine, a fire engine. -- Forcing fit (Mech.), a tight fit, as of one part into a hole in another part, which makes it necessary to use conside…

Relating to nourishment; affording, receiving, or sharing nourishment or nurture; -- applied to father, mother, child, brother, etc., to indicate that the person so called stands in the relation of parent, child, brother, etc., as regards sustenance and nurture, but not by tie of blood. Foster babe, or child, an infant…

The care of a foster child; the charge of nursing. Sir W. Raleigh.

A woman who feeds and cherishes; a nurse. B. Jonson.

A species of tenure in fee simple, being the opposite of ancient demesne, or copyhold. Burrill.

A certain tenure in tail special; an estate of inheritance given to a man his wife (the wife being of the blood of the donor), and descendible to the heirs of their two bodies begotten. [Obs.] Blackstone.