foster home

noun

plural foster homes

: a home or homelike setting where a person or animal is placed for temporary care: such as

a

: a home in which a child receives care from a foster parent

The child, her adopted parents later learned, had been abandoned by her single mother and sent through a series of foster homes …

—Deborah Bloom

Treehouse is a planned intergenerational community, created in the hope that a close-knit support network can prevent children from bouncing from one foster home to another and give them tools to succeed.

—Pam Belluck

b

: a household or similar setting providing temporary care to an animal (such as one that is injured or awaiting adoption)

She had provided a foster home to more than a dozen of the program's birds before and had found the work highly rewarding.

—Dugan Arnett

The cat project currently has 150 cats in foster homes, aside from the many cats in the shelter itself.

—Patricia Camerota

Examples of foster home in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Many California counties, which are responsible for the care of children in foster homes and juvenile halls, saw an uptick in lawsuits. —Rebecca Ellis, Los Angeles Times, 4 Apr. 2025

Kyiv says the children are put into camps and foster homes, indoctrinated to Russian customs and brainwashed into turning against Ukraine. —Mark Davis, Newsweek, 15 Mar. 2025

Sherry Novelli faces charges of contributing to delinquency of a minor and interfering with the custody of a minor Comments A teen who went missing from a Florida foster home was being secretly housed and provided with alcohol and drugs by a woman intent on adopting him, authorities say. —Laura Barcella, People.com, 24 Feb. 2025

Shelter manager Ashley Arth said that the group’s goal is always try to place animals in a foster home. —Beth Lipoff, Kansas City Star, 5 Feb. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1886, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for foster home

• acrosome
• aerodrome
• catacomb
• centrosome
• chromosome
• cytochrome
• hippodrome
• honeycomb
• liposome
• meerschaum
• metronome
• microtome

Kids Definition

foster home

noun

: a household in which an orphaned, neglected, or delinquent child is placed for care

Legal Definition

foster home

noun

: a household in which care is provided to a child who has been orphaned or removed from the home of his or her natural parents (as for reasons of abuse, neglect, or delinquency)