nurture

1. 1.

   the properties acquired as a consequence of the way you were treated as a child

   Synonymsraisingrearing

   Broaderupbringing
2. 2.

   helping someone grow up to be an accepted member of the community

   “they debated whether nature or nurture was more important”

   Synonymsbreedingbringing upfosteringfosterageraisingrearingupbringing

   Broadersocialization

Other forms of nurture

plural

nurtures·

past tense

nurtured·

present participle

nurturing·

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 nurture

What does nurture mean?

nurture means "help develop, help grow". That is the primary sense; the word has 5 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in nurture?

nurture has 2 syllables: nur-ture. The stress falls on "nur". In IPA it is /ˈnɝtʃɚ/.

What is another word for nurture?

Close synonyms include foster, rear, raise, bring up, parent. 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 nurture a common word?

nurture is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.