nanny
/ˈnani
/noun (plural nannies)
1A person, typically a woman, employed to look after a child in its own home.One thing we will see a lot more of is nanny-sharing, where two families will join up to employ a nanny and the children mix....
- The majority don't work but, however rich they may be, neither do they employ childminders or nannies.
- The £50 vouchers will be welcomed by families that employ a nanny, but many are angry at the government's portrayal of the extension of the tax credit.
1.1A person or institution regarded as interfering and overprotective.This too was the nanny state interfering, unenforceable, an infringement of civil liberty....
- That would be the over-zealous interference of the nanny state.
- This choice should lie with individual proprietors and is not a decision to be made by an interfering nanny state!
2British informal One’s grandmother.It makes death a lot less painful to accept, especially for children, knowing they will one day again see their nanny / grandad/auntie etc.
3 (in full nanny goat) A female goat.I watched her swell, taking on the full mass of an Alpine nanny goat, not the petite female she usually went about as....
- Surgeons cut a piece from the back of a nanny goat, whose hair resembled all that was left of the girl's fringe, and grafted it to her head.
- When his wife brought home a nanny goat in January 2002 from the vet clinic where she works, this couple never suspected it would help them launch a profitable niche business.
verb (nannies, nannying, nannied) (usually as noun nannying)
1 [no object] Work as a nanny: nannying and au pair work are not well paid...
- He said: ‘I'd like to go into nannying rather than a nursery because you are in a family environment.’
- There are management jobs available, while nannying, or running your own nursery or childminding business can reap financial rewards.
- Of course, Bumbershoot is this weekend, and I have four days off from nannying, so I'm hoping that I get a chance to do some fun stuff.
2 [with object] Be overprotective towards: his well-intentioned nannying...
- Well, sort of: in the real world, your first job is more likely to involve spirit-crushing manual labour than it is nannying a precocious tyke with whom you can exchange valuable life-lessons.
- The Government seems to veer between absurd nannying half the time then throwing the rule book away the rest.
- Having said that, I'm not in favour of a ban, because I'm a liberal at heart, and don't think government has any place nannying people.
Derivatives
nannyish
- This is one area where the nanny state is not nannyish enough.
- The main reason I haven't been to California before is their impertinent, nannyish tobacco fatwa.
- Does that strike you as nannyish and make you a little queasy?
Origin
Early 18th century: pet form of the given name Ann. The verb dates from the 1950s.
Both for a person taking care of young children and in nanny-goat, this is a pet form of the name Ann. The nanny state is found from the 1960s. Nan (1940s) is an abbreviation of nanny and a child's pronunciation of gran.