The Rise & Fall of “Care”
NURSE: n. a person who cares for the sick or infirm
First appearing in English in the thirteenth century, nurse identified “a woman who nourishes or suckles an infant.” It could also mean “foster mother of a young child.” Having come into the language from French bearing the very same meanings, it traces its origin to the Latin nutrix, “wet nurse.”
From Feeding to Caretaking
By the fifteenth century, it had generalized to mean “one who protects nurtures, trains, or cherishes.” Two centuries later, in Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors,the following appears: “I will attend my husband, be his nurse, Diet his...
is a retired secondary teacher of English and philosophy. For forty years he challenged students to dive deep into the classics of the Western canon, to think and write analytically, and to find the cultural constants reflected throughout that literature, art, and thought.
Get Salvo in your inbox! This article originally appeared in Salvo, Issue #71, Winter 2024 Copyright © 2024 Salvo | www.salvomag.com https://salvomag.com/article/salvo71/nurse
