foster

1. 1.

   United States songwriter whose songs embody the sentiment of the South before the American Civil War (1826-1864)

   SynonymsStephen FosterStephen Collins Foster

   Broadersongwriter

1. 1.

   providing or receiving nurture or parental care though not related by blood or legal ties

   “foster parent”

   “foster child”

   “foster home”

   “surrogate father”

   Synonymssurrogate

   Similaradoptive

Other forms of foster

plural

fosters·

past tense

fosterred·

present participle

fosterring·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about foster

What does foster mean?

foster means "promote the growth of". That is the primary sense; the word has 5 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in foster?

foster has 2 syllables: fo-ster. The stress falls on "fo". In IPA it is /ˈfɑstɚ/.

What is another word for foster?

Close synonyms include further, nurture, Stephen Foster, Stephen Collins Foster, surrogate. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is foster a common word?

foster is banded "Common" — everyday vocabulary in speech and writing. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.