to nurse billiard balls

Webster's Dictionary (GCIDE)

1.To nourish; to cherish; to foster; as: (a) To nourish at the breast; to suckle; to feed and tend, as an infant. (b) To take care of or tend, as a sick person or an invalid; to attend upon. [1913 Webster]

Sons wont to nurse their parents in old age.— Milton.[1913 Webster]

Him in Egerian groves Aricia bore, And nursed his youth along the marshy shore.— Dryden.[1913 Webster]

2.To bring up; to raise, by care, from a weak or invalid condition; to foster; to cherish; -- applied to plants, animals, and to any object that needs, or thrives by, attention. "To nurse the saplings tall." --Milton. [1913 Webster]

By what hands [has vice] been nursed into so uncontrolled a dominion?— Locke.[1913 Webster]

3.To manage with care and economy, with a view to increase; as, to nurse our national resources. [1913 Webster]

4.To caress; to fondle, as a nurse does. --A. Trollope. [1913 Webster]

To nurse billiard balls, to strike them gently and so as to keep them in good position during a series of caroms. [1913 Webster]