foster

adjective

1. 1

   Providing parental care to children not related to oneself.

   foster parents

2. 2

   Receiving such care.

   a foster child

3. 3

   Related by such care.

   We are a foster family.

noun

1. 1

   informalA foster parent.

   Some fosters end up adopting.

2. 2

   The care given to another; guardianship.

verb

1. 1

   To nurture or bring up offspring, or to provide similar parental care to an unrelated child.

   Some ſay that Rauens foſter forlorne children, / The whilſt their owne birds famiſh in their neſts: / Oh be to me though thy hard hart ſay no, / Nothing ſo kinde but ſomething pittiful.

2. 2

   To promote the development of something; to cultivate and grow a thing.

   Our company fosters an appreciation for the arts.

   ⁠A flower beat with rain and wind, Which once she foster’d up with care

   And Time, which is the hound of Sish, devoured all things; and Sish sent up the ivy and fostered weeds, and dust fell from the hand of Sish and covered stately things.

   Grimsby doesn't ever wound quite as devastatingly as Borat or Brüno, but it's a vital, lavish, venomously profane two fingers up at Benefits Street pity porn and the social division it fosters.

3. 3

   To nurse or cherish something.

4. 4

   obsoleteTo be nurtured or trained up together.

   There Florimell, in her first ages flowre, And passing beautie did eftsoones reveale, Was fostered by those Graces

noun

1. 1

   obsoleteA forester.

   A griesly Foster forth did rush.

Forms

plural

fosters

past tense

fostered

past participle

fostered

present participle

fostering

third person singular

fosters