Definition of "foster"

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 Their Seruants (the First Quarto), London: Printed by Iohn Danter, and are to be sold by Edward White & Thomas Millington, at the little North doore of Paules at the signe of the Gunne, published 1594, [Act II, scene iii]

⁠A flower beat with rain and wind,Which once she foster’d up with care

1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], canto VIII, page 10

And Time, which is the hound of Sish, devoured all things; and Sish sent up the ivy and fostered weeds, and dust fell from the hand of Sish and covered stately things.

1905, [Edward Plunkett,] Lord Dunsany, The Gods of Pegāna‎, London: Elkin Mathews, […]

Grimsby doesn't ever wound quite as devastatingly as Borat or Brüno, but it's a vital, lavish, venomously profane two fingers up at Benefits Street pity porn and the social division it fosters.

2016 February 23, Robbie Collin, “Grimsby review: ‘Sacha Baron Cohen’s vital, venomous action movie’”, in The Daily Telegraph (London)

There Florimell, in her first ages flowre, And passing beautie did eftsoones reveale, Was fostered by those Graces

1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto V”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie

A griesly Foster forth did rush.

1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie