Other forms: nourished, nourishing, nourishes
To nourish is to feed something so it stays healthy and grows. Nourish the body, nourish a hope, well nourished.
It means feeding for growth rather than merely filling — which is why it works so naturally for hopes, talents and friendships as well as bodies. Well nourished and malnourished are the clinical pair. Note nourishment, nutrition, nurse and nurture, all from the same Latin verb meaning to suckle.
1verbnourishTo feed something so it stays healthy and grows.
“Rain and warm sunshine nourished the young plants.”
nourish is a feeding.
Old French norrir comes from Latin nutrire, to suckle or feed. Nurse, nurture and nutrition come from the same feeding.
Proto-Indo-European
*(s)neh₂-
Latin
nutriō — to suckle, feed, foster, nourish, cherish, preserve, support
Old French
nouriss-
Middle English
norischen
English, today
nourish
From Middle English norischen, from Old French nouriss-, stem of one of the conjugated forms of norrir, from Latin nutriō (“to suckle, feed, foster, nourish, cherish, preserve, support”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA