fosterage

Noun

fosterage (countable and uncountable, plural fosterages)

1. The act of fostering another's child as if it were one's own.
   • […] it was worthy of extraordinary note, how that upstart family of the Kings of Pergamus had raised it selfe to marvellous greatnesse, in very short space, from the condition of meere slavery: whereof a principall cause was, the brotherly love maintained by them, with singular commendation of...1614, Walter Raleigh, The Historie of the World, London: Walter Burre, Part 1, Book 5, Chapter 6, §3, pp. 622-623
   • There still remains in the Islands, though it is passing fast away, the custom of fosterage. A Laird, a man of wealth and eminence, sends his child, either male or female, to a tacksman, or tenant, to be fostered.1775, Samuel Johnson, “Castle of Col”, in A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland
2. The act of caring for another human being or animal.
   • I do acknowledg my self not to be a little beholding to the Italian and Spanish Treatises; though without my fosterage, and bringing up under the Generosities and Bounties of my Noble Patrons and Masters, I could never have arrived to this Experience.1660, Robert May, The Accomplisht Cook, London: Obadiah Blagrave, 5th edition, 1685
   • […] the wisdom and prudence of penal-laws become the more necessary in the colonies to prevent the ill treatment of those friendless captives, brought solely for colonial interests into those states; and also for laws not only granting them immediate fosterage and protection, but holding out to...1797, Jeremiah Fitzpatrick, Suggestions on the Slave Trade: For the Consideration of the Legislature of Great Britain, London: John Stockdale, page 24
3. The condition of being the foster child.
   • He had not gone one step nearer the lives he had sought to approach nor bridged the restless shame and rancour that had divided him from mother and brother and sister. He felt that he was hardly of the one blood with them but stood to them rather in the mystical kinship of fosterage, fosterchild...1916, James Joyce, chapter II, in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, New York, N.Y.: B[enjamin] W. Huebsch, →OCLC, page 111
4. The act of promoting or encouraging something.
   • The effect of a duelling spirit, on the heart that nourishes it, is of a most deplorable character. This self-vindicating spirit, gradually destroys a man’s confidence in the integrity, intelligence, and enlightened impartiality of those around him. […] he will heed as little the lofty generous...1828, Walter Colton, Remarks on Duelling, New York: Leavitt, pages 39–40
   • Markets are not developed overnight and basic to the success of any marketing program is fosterage of a land use program that assures a permanent agriculture.1945, United States Department of the Interior, Bureau of Reclamation, Insuring Proper Land Use, Columbia Basin Joint Investigations, Problem 3, Chapter 3, p. 13