'Nurse' meant 'wet nurse' for centuries — from Latin 'nutrix' (she who nourishes). The medical sense came later.
A person trained to care for the sick or infirm, especially in a hospital.
From Old French 'norrice' (wet nurse, nanny), from Late Latin 'nūtrīcia' (a nurse, a woman who suckles), from Latin 'nūtrīx' (she who nourishes, a wet nurse), from 'nūtrīre' (to nourish, to suckle), from PIE *sneh₂- (to flow, to swim, to let flow). The word originally meant exclusively a wet nurse — a woman who breastfed another's child. The broader sense of 'one who tends the sick' developed much later, not becoming standard until the nineteenth century with the professionalization of nursing by Florence Nightingale. Key roots: *sneh₂- (Proto-Indo-European: "to flow
The word 'nurse' meant 'wet nurse' — a woman who breastfeeds another's child — for over five centuries before it meant 'medical caregiver.' The modern profession of nursing, as formalized by Florence Nightingale in the 1850s, essentially repurposed a word for breastfeeding into one for hospital care, trading milk for medicine.