different between nurse vs neat

English

Alternative forms

• nourice (archaic)
• norice (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English norice, from Old French norrice, from Latin n?tr?cius (“that nourishes”), from n?tr?x (“wet nurse”), from n?tri? (“to suckle”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /n??s/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /n?s/
• Rhymes: -??(?)s

Noun

nurse (plural nurses)

1. (archaic) A wet nurse.
2. A person (usually a woman) who takes care of other people’s young.

3. A person trained to provide care for the sick.
   • 1990, Andrew Davies, Michael Dobbs, House of Cards, Season 1, Episode 4

     Francis Urquhart: Right. Mackenzie. Health. No chance of getting him into a demo at a hospital, I suppose?
     Tim Stamper: Doesn't go to hospitals any more. Kept getting beaten up by the nurses... I think he has trouble getting insured now.

4. (figuratively) One who, or that which, brings up, rears, causes to grow, trains, or fosters.
   • 1790, Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France

     the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise

5. (horticulture) A shrub or tree that protects a young plant.
6. (nautical) A lieutenant or first officer who takes command when the captain is unfit for his place.
7. A larva of certain trematodes, which produces cercariae by asexual reproduction.
8. A nurse shark.

Usage notes

• Some speakers consider nurses (medical workers) to be female by default, and thus use "male nurse" to refer to a man doing the same job.

Derived terms

• nurse practitioner
• snotty's nurse
• wet nurse, wet-nurse

Descendants

Translations

Verb

nurse (third-person singular simple present nurses, present participle nursing, simple past and past participle nursed)

1. (transitive) To breastfeed: to feed (a baby) at the breast; to suckle.

   She believes that nursing her baby will make him strong and healthy.

2. (intransitive) To breastfeed: to be fed at the breast.
3. (transitive) To care for (someone), especially in sickness; to tend to.

   She nursed him back to health.

4. to treat kindly and with extra care

   She nursed the rosebush and that season it bloomed.

5. to manage with care and economy

   Synonym: husband

6. to drink slowly, to make it last

   Rob was nursing a small beer.

7. to foster, to nourish
8. to hold closely to one's chest

   Would you like to nurse the puppy?

9. (billiards) To strike (billiard balls) gently, so as to keep them in good position during a series of shots.
   • 1866, United States. Congress. Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, Supplemental report of the Joint Committee

     It is to our interest to let Lee and Johnston come together, just as a billiard-player would nurse the balls when he has them in a nice place

Usage notes

In sense “to drink slowly”, generally negative and particularly used for someone at a bar, suggesting they either cannot afford to buy another drink or are too miserly to do so. By contrast, sip is more neutral.

Synonyms

• (drink slowly): sip, see also Thesaurus:drink

Translations

See also

• matron
• sister

Further reading

• nurse in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• nurse in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• nurse at OneLook Dictionary Search
• Nurse in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)

Anagrams

• Nuers, Suren, Unser, runes, urnes

Middle English

Noun

nurse

1. Alternative form of norice

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ni?t/
• Rhymes: -i?t

Etymology 1

From Middle English *nete, net, nette (> Modern net "after deductions, unadulterated"), from Anglo-Norman neit (“good, desireable, clean”), a variant of Old French net, nette ("clean, clear, pure"; from Latin nitidus (“gleaming”), from nite? (“I shine”)).

Adjective

neat (comparative neater, superlative neatest)

1. Clean, tidy; free from dirt or impurities.

   • Then his sallow face brightened, for the hall had been carefully furnished, and was very clean. ¶ There was a neat hat-and-umbrella stand, and the stranger's weary feet fell soft on a good, serviceable dark-red drugget, which matched in colour the flock-paper on the walls.
2. Free from contaminants; unadulterated, undiluted. Particularly of liquor and cocktails; see usage below.
   • 1595, George Peele, The Old Wives’ Tale, The Malone Society Reprints, 1908, lines 464-465,^[2]

     A cup of neate wine of Orleance,

     That never came neer the brewers of England.

   • 1756, David Garrick, Catharine and Petruchio, London: J. & R. Tonson and S. Draper, Prologue,^[3]

     From this same Head, this Fountain-head divine,

     For different Palates springs a different Wine!

     In which no Tricks, to strengthen, or to thin ’em—

     Neat as imported—no French Brandy in em’—

   • 1932, Winston Churchill, Painting as a Pastime, New York: Cornerstone Library, 1965,^[4]

     At one side of the palette there is white, at the other black; and neither is ever used ‘neat.’

3. (chemistry) Conditions with a liquid reagent or gas performed with no standard solvent or cosolvent.

4. (archaic) With all deductions or allowances made; net.
   • 1720, William Bond, The History of the Life and Adventures of Mr. Duncan Campbell, London: E. Curll, Chapter 4, pp. 55-56,^[5]

     Why without telling the least title of Falshood, within the space of the last Week’s Play, the Gains of Count Cog, really amounted to no less than Twenty Thousand Pounds Sterling neat Money.

   • 1752, David Hume, Political Discourses, Edinburgh: A. Kincaid & A. Donaldson, Discourse 5, p. 81,^[6]

     Dr. Swift […] says, in his short view of the state of Ireland, that the whole cash of that kingdom amounted to 500,000 l. that out of this they remitted every year a neat million to England, and had scarce any other source to compensate themselves from […]

   • 1793, John Brand, The Alteration of the Constitution of the House of Commons, and the Inequality of the Land-Tax, Considered Jointly, London: J. Evans, Section III, p. 52,^[7]

     It may be said, that the increase of the tax is an uncompensated reduction of the neat income of the landlord […]

5. Having a simple elegance or style; clean, trim, tidy, tasteful.

6. Well-executed or delivered; clever, skillful, precise.

7. Facile; missing complexity or details in the favor of convenience or simplicity.

8. (Canada, US, colloquial) Good, excellent, desirable.

Usage notes

In bartending, neat has the formal meaning “a liquor pour straight from the bottle into a glass, at room temperature, without ice or chilling”. This is contrasted with on the rocks (“over ice”), and with drinks that are chilled but strained (stirred over ice to chill, but poured through a strainer so that there is no ice in the glass), which is formally referred to as up. However, the terminology is a point of significant confusion, with neat, up, straight up, and straight being used by bar patrons (and some bartenders) variously and ambiguously to mean either “unchilled” or “chilled” (but without ice in the glass), and hence clarification is often required.

Antonyms

• (undiluted liquor or cocktail): on the rocks

Coordinate terms

• (undiluted liquor or cocktail): straight up, up, straight

Derived terms

• neat freak
• neatly

Translations

Interjection

neat

1. Used to signify a job well done.
2. Used to signify approval.

Noun

neat (plural neats)

1. (informal) An artificial intelligence researcher who believes that solutions should be elegant, clear and provably correct. Compare scruffy.

Etymology 2

From Middle English nete, neat, from Old English n?at (“animal, beast, ox, cow, cattle”), from Proto-Germanic *naut? (“foredeal, profit, property, livestock”), from Proto-Indo-European *newd- (“to acquire, make use of”). Cognate with Dutch noot (“cow, cattle”, in compounds), dialectal German Noß (“livestock”), Alemannic German Nooss (“young sheep or goat”), Swedish nöt (“cattle”), Icelandic naut (“cattle, bull”) and Faroese neyt (“cattle”) More at note.

Noun

neat (plural neat)

1. (archaic) A bull or cow.
   • 1570, Thomas Tusser, A Hundreth Good Pointes of Husbandry Lately Maried unto a Hundreth Good Poynts of Huswifery, “Januarye,” stanza 54,^[8]

     Who both by his calfe, & his lambe wil be known,

     may well kill a neate and a shepe of his owne.

     And he that wil reare up a pyg in his house,

     hath cheaper his bacon, and sweter his souse.

   • 1596-99, William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act I, scene i:

     Thanks, i'faith; for silence is only commendable / In a neat's tongue dried.

   • 1611, Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act II, Scene 2,^[9]

     […] he’s a present for any emperor that ever trod on neat’s leather.

   • 1663, Samuel Butler, Hudibras, Part 1, Canto 2, p. 51,^[10]

     Sturdy he was, and no less able,

     Then Hercules to clense a Stable;

     As great: Drover, and as great

     A Critick too, in Hog or Neat,

   • 1756, Thomas Amory, The Life of John Buncle, Esq., London: J. Noon, Chapter 28, p. 165,^[11]

     […] I sat down by this water in the shade to dine, on a neat’s tongue I had got from good Mrs. Price […]

2. (archaic) Cattle collectively.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, London: William Ponsonbie, Book Six, Canto 9, p. 467,^[12]

     From thence into the open fields he fled,

     Whereas the Heardes were keeping of their neat

     And shepheards singing to their flockes, that fed,

   • 1610, William Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale, Act I, Scene 2,^[13]

     And yet the steer, the heifer, and the calf

     Are all call’d neat.

   • 1648, Robert Herrick, Hesperides, "To his Muse":

     Thou on a Hillock thou may sing

     Unto a handsome Shepardling

     Or to a Girlie (that keeps the Neat)

     With breath more sweat than Violet.

Derived terms

• neatherd
• neatfoot, neatsfoot
• neatish

Related terms

• geneat

Translations

References

Anagrams

• Aten, Etan, Etna, Nate, Tean, Tena, anet, ante, ante-, etna, neta, ta'en

Cahuilla

Noun

néat

1. basket

Latin

Verb

neat

1. third-person singular present active subjunctive of ne?

Old English

Etymology

From Proto-Germanic *naut?. Cognate with Old Frisian n?t, Old Saxon n?t, Dutch noot, Old High German n?z (dialectal German Nos), Old Norse naut.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /næ???t/

Noun

n?at n

1. cow, ox; animal

Declension

Descendants

• English: neat

Related terms

• geneat
• nieten

West Frisian

Etymology

Negative form of eat.

Pronoun

neat

1. nothing

Further reading

• “neat”, in Wurdboek fan de Fryske taal (in Dutch), 2011