wet-nurse

1. 1.

   a woman hired to suckle a child of someone else

   Synonymswet nursewetnurseamah

   Broadernanny

1. 1.

   give suck to

   “The wetnurse suckled the infant”

   “You cannot nurse your baby in public in some places”

   Synonymsbreastfeedsucklesucknurselactategive suck

   Broaderfeed

Questions about wet-nurse

What does wet-nurse mean?

wet-nurse means "a woman hired to suckle a child of someone else". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in wet-nurse?

wet-nurse has 2 syllables: wet--nurse. The stress falls on "wet-".

What is another word for wet-nurse?

Close synonyms include wet nurse, wetnurse, amah, breastfeed, suckle. 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 wet-nurse a common word?

wet-nurse is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.