fostering

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.
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

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