NURSE Basic Verbs Learn English Grammar
hi everybody my name is alicia welcome
back to know your verbs in this episode
we’re going to talk about the verb
nurse let’s get started
okay so let’s start with the basic
definition of the verb
nurse the basic definition of the verb
nurse is to care for
someone or something it means
to care a lot or to give
a lot of attention and care
to someone examples her family
nursed her to health he nursed his wife
during her illness
okay let’s look at the conjugations of
this verb
present nurse nurses
past nursed past participle
nursed progressive nursing
all right now let’s move on to some
additional meanings for this verb
the first additional meaning is to
provide or
take breast milk as for babies
okay let’s begin with a couple examples
the baby is nursing well how long
are you planning to nurse the baby so in
these situations
the example sentences are relating to
either a baby
drinking breast milk or to a mother
giving
breast milk to a baby in the first
example sentence the baby
is nursing well it means the baby is
eating or the baby is drinking well
and that refers to breast milk
specifically so
not anything else but nursing refers
specifically to having
mother’s milk in the second example
sentence a question
how long are you going to nurse the baby
it means how long are you going
to provide breast milk for the baby so
this is probably a question
for mothers or i suppose it could be
fathers also
asking about the baby’s care but nurse
in this way when talking about newborn
children
refers to milk either giving or taking
if you’re talking about the baby okay
let’s move on to the second
additional meaning for this verb the
second additional meaning is to use
something
carefully to avoid pain or to avoid
injury examples he’s been nursing his
hand
all day she’s nursing her left
foot isn’t she so we see nursing
used in the progressive tense in the ing
form in both of these
in the first example sentence about
nursing his hand
that means he’s using his hand very
carefully
maybe because it’s painful to use the
hand
regularly so for example if a person
breaks their wrist
which i’ve done it might be painful to
move the hand properly
so to avoid pain people might
nurse that um that wrist or might nurse
the broken bone or might nurse their
injury
meaning that they’re very careful like
they move it slowly
for example or they don’t move it very
much or they don’t apply much weight to
it
we see the same thing in the second
example sentence she’s nursing her left
foot
isn’t she that shows that perhaps she’s
not applying much weight she’s not
stepping or standing a lot on her left
foot or she’s being very careful about
her left
foot so nursing shows that they’re
taking some
extra kind of care with an injured or
painful part of the body
so this is an additional meaning of the
word nurse
the third additional meaning is to
consume
over a long period sometimes an
unusually long period
examples you’re really nursing that beer
she nursed her tea by the window all
right
so we commonly see this with drinks
actually so
um drinks if you take a very long
time to consume the drink to drink the
drink
someone might say you’re nursing your
drink it just means you’re taking an
unusually long time to drink it
if for example as in the first sentence
you’re
really nursing that beer it’s like your
friends or whoever you’re drinking with
they expect you to drink the beer more
quickly than you’re drinking it now so
maybe you’ve had the same beer
for an hour or two hours maybe but your
friends have had
two drinks for example so that means
maybe you’re taking an
unusually long time in the second
example sentence she nursed her tea
by the window it’s like she’s just
taking a long time
to enjoy her tea for example maybe she’s
holding it and not drinking it quickly
just means she’s taking her time to
consume the drink
so nurse can have this meaning of taking
a long time
to like drink or eat or consume
something but commonly used with drinks
so the verb nurse doesn’t actually have
any particular phrasal verbs or
idioms that are used along with it but i
hope that you were able to find a few
new meanings from the additional meaning
section of this video
so if you have any questions or comments
or if you would like to try to make a
sentence
using the verb nurse please feel free to
do so in the comment section of this
video
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thanks very much for watching this
episode of know your verbs and we’ll see
you again
soon bye-bye do something carefully to
avoid pain right
okay the second sorry
i will read it properly now all right