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Nurse vs Assistant - What's the difference?

nurse | assistant |

As nouns the difference between nurse and assistant

is that nurse is (archaic) a wet-nurse while assistant is (obsolete) someone who is present; a bystander, a witness.

As a verb nurse

is to breast feed.

As an adjective assistant is

having a subordinate or auxiliary position.

nurse

English

(wikipedia nurse)

Noun

(en noun)
  • (archaic) A wet-nurse.
  • A person (usually a woman) who takes care of other people’s young.
  • They hired a nurse to care for their young boy
  • A person trained to provide care for the sick.
  • The nurse made her rounds through the hospital ward
  • One who, or that which, brings up, rears, causes to grow, trains, fosters, or the like.
  • * Burke
  • the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise
  • (nautical) A lieutenant or first officer who takes command when the captain is unfit for his place.
  • A larva of certain trematodes, which produces cercariae by asexual reproduction.
  • 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.

    Verb

    (nurs)
  • to breast feed
  • She believes that nursing her baby will make him strong and healthy .
  • to care for the sick
  • She nursed him back to health.
  • to treat kindly and with extra care
  • She nursed the rosebush and that season it bloomed.
  • to drink slowly
  • to foster, to nourish
  • to hold closely to one's chest
  • Would you like to nurse the puppy?
  • 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

    Derived terms

    * nurse practitioner * wet nurse, wet-nurse

    See also

    * matron * sister

    Anagrams

    * (l), (l), (l)

    assistant

    English

    Alternative forms

    * assistaunt (obsolete)

    Adjective

    (-) (attributive)
  • Having a subordinate or auxiliary position.
  • an assistant surgeon
  • Helping; lending aid or support; auxiliary.
  • * Beattie
  • Genius and learning are mutually and greatly assistant to each other.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (obsolete) Someone who is present; a bystander, a witness.
  • *, II.3:
  • a woman of great authority, having first yeelded an accompt unto her Citizens, and shewed good reasons why she was resolved to end her life, earnestly entreated Pompey to be an assistant at her death, that so it might be esteemed more honourable.
  • A person who assists or helps someone else.
  • (British) Sales assistant.
  • A software tool that provides assistance in some task.
  • Anagrams

    * ----