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foster

UK/ˈfɒstə/
verbB24 meaningsVery common — you will meet it every day · #2,182 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: fostering, fostered, fosters

To foster a child is to take them into your home and bring them up for a time without becoming their legal parent. A boy is placed with a family for six months; they feed him, walk him to school, and he keeps his own name.

The word stands in front of half that world: foster parents, foster carer, foster home, foster care, foster child. The other big use has nothing to do with children — to foster something is to help it grow: a school fosters a love of reading, the talks fostered trust between the two sides, a scheme that fosters small businesses. That sense takes ideas and feelings, not objects; you foster confidence, you do not foster a tomato plant. And keep foster apart from adopt, which makes a child legally yours for good. Fostering is temporary by design.

Definitions of foster

  1. 1verbfosterTo bring up a child who is not your own, for a period and without adopting them.B2

    “They fostered two brothers for most of a year.”

  2. 2verbencourageTo help something develop or grow stronger.B2

    “Small classes foster the kind of talk that big ones kill.”

    synonyms: encourage, nurture, promote

  3. 3adjectiveconnectedConnected with the fostering of a child rather than with birth.B2

    “His foster parents drove him to every match.”

  4. 4verbanimalTo look after an animal in your home for a while, until it finds a permanent owner.B2

    “They foster kittens for the rescue centre down the road.”

Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.

Also practised as

  • verbTo care for an animal temporarily.

Where it comes from

Foster began as food. Old English fostor meant sustenance, from Germanic *fōstrą, nourishment, and to foster a child was first of all to feed one. The same root left Danish and Swedish with foster meaning a fetus, and the trail runs back to a Proto-Indo-European root behind it. When a school fosters curiosity, it is feeding it.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *peh₂-

  2. Proto-Germanic

    *fōstrą — nourishment, food

  3. Proto-West Germanic

    *fōstr

  4. Old English

    fostor — food, sustenance

  5. Middle English

    foster

  6. English, today

    foster

From Middle English foster, from Old English fostor (“food, sustenance”), from Proto-West Germanic fōstr, from Proto-Germanic fōstrą (“nourishment, food”). Cognate with Middle Dutch voester (“nursemaid”), Middle Low German voster (“food”), Old Norse fóstr (“nurturing, education, alimony, child support”), Danish foster (“fetus”), Swedish foster (“fetus”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Family & People, Sharper Verbs

Practise this word

foster in the wild

  • The placement of a "foster child" is normally arranged through the government or a social service agency.

    Foster care

  • The institution, group home, or foster parent is compensated for expenses unless with a family member.

    Foster care

  • Fosterage, the practice of a family bringing up a child not their own, differs from adoption in that the child's parents, not the foster-parents, remain the acknowledged parents.

    Fosterage

  • In many modern western societies foster care can be organised by the state to care for children with troubled family backgrounds, usually on a temporary basis.

    Fosterage

  • Native American students who were baptized members of the LDS Church were placed in foster homes of LDS members during the school year.

    Indian Placement Program

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

From Project Gutenberg, public domain. These sentences are from real books, shown to illustrate the word at work.

Related words

  • foster parent