What does foster mean?
To foster is to nurture, encourage, or promote the growth of something. In its most abstract sense, the verb applies to intangibles: governments foster cooperation, teachers foster curiosity, and communities foster trust. In its most concrete sense, fostering refers to bringing up someone else's child, usually on a temporary basis and without formal adoption — an arrangement known as foster care, involving foster parents and foster homes. The word carries warm connotations of care, patience, and deliberate support, whether applied to people, relationships, or ambitions. It appears frequently in professional and civic language, where 'foster dialogue', 'foster innovation', and 'foster goodwill' are established expressions. Derived directly from an Old English root connected with food and feeding, 'foster' preserves in modern usage the idea of sustenance: whatever we foster, we help to grow by steadily supplying what it needs.
To encourage or promote the development of something, such as a feeling, plan, or condition.
"The club aims to foster closer ties between local businesses and residents."
To bring up a child who is not one's own by birth, usually on a temporary basis and without legal adoption.
"They decided to foster children while their own were at university."
Designating a person, home, or relationship that provides temporary substitute parental care, as in foster parent, foster home, or foster brother.
"Her foster mother welcomed her with open arms."
Before it meant encouraging ideas, 'foster' literally meant supplying food — the word for feeding a child became the word for nourishing dreams.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of foster
'Foster' derives from Old English 'fōstor', meaning food or nourishment, and relates etymologically to the verb 'feed'. In medieval usage, 'foster' referred to the rearing of a child by someone other than the birth parents, a practice known as fosterage, which was notably common among Anglo-Saxon and Celtic nobility. Over time the meaning broadened from physical nourishment to the general encouragement of growth and development, producing the modern figurative sense of cultivating feelings, ideas, or conditions. Cognate notions of feeding and rearing survive in related words such as 'food' and 'feed'.
Related word forms
How foster is actually used
As a verb meaning to raise another's child, 'foster' is often used in formal, legal, and social-work contexts ('to foster a child', 'children in foster care'). The figurative sense of encouraging feelings or development is common in formal writing, business language, and everyday speech. The related noun form is 'fosterer', though this is rare; more common are compounds like 'foster parent'.
Easily confused with foster
As a verb, foster describes the act of nurturing or encouraging; as an attributive adjective (as in 'foster mother' or 'foster home'), it describes a person or place providing that temporary substitute care.