Emily Dickinson Lexicon

NURS'E-RY, n.

1. The place or apartment in a house appropriated to the care of children. Bacon.
2. A place where young trees are propagated for the purpose of being transplanted; a plantation of young trees. Bacon.
3. The place where any thing is fostered and the growth promoted. To see fair Padua, nursery of arts. Shak. So we say, a nursery of thieves or of rogues. Alehouses and dram-shops are the nurseries of intemperance. Christian families are the nurseries of the church on earth, as she is the nursery of the church in heaven. J. M. Mason.
4. That which forms and educates. Commerce is the nursery of seamen.
5. The act of nursing. [Little used.] Shak.
6. That which is the object of a nurse's care. Milton.