Word.ws English Dictionary

foster

UK/ˈfɒstə/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Australia/ˈfɔstə/

foster adjective: providing parental care to children not related to oneself.

Adjective

foster (not comparable)

  1. Providing parental care to children not related to oneself.
    • foster parents
  2. Receiving such care.
    • a foster child
  3. Related by such care.
    • We are a foster family.

Noun (1)

foster (countable and uncountable, plural fosters)

  1. (countable, informal) A foster parent.
    • Some fosters end up adopting.
  2. (uncountable) The care given to another; guardianship.

Verb

foster (third-person singular simple present fosters, present participle fostering, simple past and past participle fostered)

  1. (transitive) To nurture or bring up offspring, or to provide similar parental care to an unrelated child.
    • Some ſay that Rauens foſter forlorne children, / The whilſt their owne birds famiſh in their neſts: / Oh be to me though thy hard hart ſay no, / Nothing ſo kinde but ſomething pittiful.c. 1588–1593, [William Shakespeare], The Most Lamentable Romaine Tragedie of Titus Andronicus: As It was Plaide by the Right Honourable the Earle of Darbie, Earle of Pembrooke, and Earle of Sussex...
  2. (transitive) To promote the development of something; to cultivate and grow a thing.
    • Our company fosters an appreciation for the arts.
    • ⁠A flower beat with rain and wind,
      Which once she foster’d up with care1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto VIII”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 10
  3. (transitive) To nurse or cherish something.
  4. (intransitive, obsolete) To be nurtured or trained up together.
    • There Florimell, in her first ages flowre,
      And passing beautie did eftsoones reveale,
      Was fostered by those Graces1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto V”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC

Noun (2)

foster (plural fosters)

  1. (obsolete) A forester.
    • A griesly Foster forth did rush.1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC

Proper noun capitalized: Foster

Foster (countable and uncountable, plural Fosters)

  1. An English surname originating as an occupation, variant of Forster.
    • The Mets got that four-run cushion in the seventh when George Foster stepped in as a pinch-hitter and hit a two-run homer for the 5-1 final.1983 June 27, Kevin Dupont, “METS GAIN SPLIT; STAUB TIES MARK”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 24 May 2015
  2. A male given name transferred from the surname.
  3. A former settlement in San Diego County, California.
  4. An unincorporated community in Warren County, Indiana.
  5. An unincorporated community in Bracken County, Kentucky.
  6. A township and unincorporated community therein, in Big Stone County, Minnesota.
  7. A village in Bates County, Missouri; named for Ohio governor Charles Foster.
  8. A village in Pierce County, Nebraska; named for George Foster, original owner of town's site.
  9. A town in Garvin County, Oklahoma.
  10. An unincorporated community partly in Sweet Home, Linn County, Oregon.
  11. A town in Providence County, Rhode Island; named for Rhode Island statesman Theodore Foster.
  12. A town in Clark County, Wisconsin.
Show 5 more meaningsShow fewer meanings
  1. An unincorporated community in the town of Clear Creek, Eau Claire County, Wisconsin.
  2. A number of other townships, including in Illinois (2), Michigan, Minnesota (1 more), Pennsylvania (3), and South Dakota, listed under Foster Township.
  3. A village in the town of Brome Lake, Brome-Missisquoi Regional County Municipality, southern Quebec, Canada.
  4. A town in South Gippsland Shire, south-east Victoria, Australia.
  5. (abbreviation, ellipsis) Ellipsis of Foster County.

Examples of foster in a sentence

  • And Time, which is the hound of Sish, devoured all things; and Sish sent up the ivy and fostered weeds, and dust fell from the hand of Sish and covered stately things.1905, Lord Dunsany [i.e., Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany], The Gods of Pegāna, London: [Charles] Elkin Mathews, […], →OCLC:
  • Grimsby doesn't ever wound quite as devastatingly as Borat or Brüno, but it's a vital, lavish, venomously profane two fingers up at Benefits Street pity porn and the social division it fosters.2016 February 23, Robbie Collin, “Grimsby review: ‘Sacha Baron Cohen’s vital, venomous action movie’”, in The Daily Telegraph (London):

All 40 example sentences with foster

Antonyms of foster

Forms of foster

Noun
pluralfosters
Verb
third-person singular presentfosters
present participlefostering
past participlefostered
pastfostered
Proper noun
pluralFosters

Past tense of foster: fostered

Origin of foster

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

English surname, reduced from Forster; also from the noun foster.

Words formed from foster

Phrases with foster

Words that rhyme with foster

Questions about foster

What does foster mean?
Foster means providing parental care to children not related to oneself.
How do you use foster in a sentence?
And Time, which is the hound of Sish, devoured all things; and Sish sent up the ivy and fostered weeds, and dust fell from the hand of Sish and covered stately things.
What part of speech is foster?
Foster can be an adjective, a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce foster?
Foster is pronounced /ˈfɒstə/ (UK).

Words near foster in the dictionary

  1. fossés
  2. FOSTA
  3. fostamatinib
  4. Fostat
  5. fostemsavir
  6. foster
  7. foster brother
  8. foster care
  9. foster child
  10. foster children
  11. Foster City

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: foster (page history and authors); Foster (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-foster.ogg, en-us-foster.ogg.

Cite this entry: “foster.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/foster. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.