foster child

[ faw-ster chahyld, fos-ter ]

noun

1. a child raised by someone who is not their biological or adoptive parent.
2. a needy child, such as one living in an impoverished country, supported or aided by contribution to a specific charity.

foster child

noun

1. a child looked after temporarily or brought up by people other than its natural or adoptive parents

Word History and Origins

Origin of foster child¹

1150–1200; Middle English fostercild

Example Sentences

It meant her foster children could avoid some awkward conversations.

From Washington Post

About 3% of same-sex couples are raising a foster child and more than 21% are raising an adopted child, making them seven times more likely than different-sex couples to be raising an adopted child.

From Time

Group home providers serving foster children were required to obtain short-term residential therapeutic program licenses under the new state law.

From Voice of San Diego

Allie is an abused foster child in the southern US who specializes, when her power comes, in control.

From Vox

She’d anticipated that any foster child she had would be in school, but then the coronavirus pandemic struck.

From ProPublica

Clusters, filaments, and voids make up the large-scale structure of the Universe, foster-child of gravity and slow time.

From The Daily Beast

“The BND is a foster child of the USA,” historian Josef Foschepoth told the popular German news program Tagesschau.

From The Daily Beast

“It takes a very special kind of person, and nerve, to take on a foster child,” he says.

From The Daily Beast

He will never again have to live with the Barahonas, who took him in as a foster child in 2004 and adopted him in 2009.

From The Daily Beast

The foster-child remained behind to share the hut of the political exile.

From Project Gutenberg

She will thee bereave of almost every joy, the fair-faced foster-child of Heimir.

From Project Gutenberg

Villain as he was, and stained with the blood of her foster-child, her heart warmed toward him—the mother was the mother still!

From Project Gutenberg

The adopted country of each of these Italians gave more or less of its own impress to its foster child.

From Project Gutenberg

Kiev was at that time the foster-child of Constantinople and the Eastern empire.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• care