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

Since August, the Oregon tech company, The Contingent, through the Every Child TN initiative, helped generate 176 new and prospective foster home placements and more than $500,000 in donations to meet physical needs of foster kids, the state said. —Brad Schmitt, The Tennessean, 2 July 2025

At my last foster home, before Mother returned from her travels, the dog bit me. —Literary Hub, 27 June 2025

Reports of immigration enforcement agents visiting Miami immigration court and a Pensacola foster home caused one Republican state senator to draw her line in the sand. —Siena Duncan, Miami Herald, 13 June 2025

She’s been waiting at the Humane Society for Hamilton County in Fishers and as well as a foster home, her pet profile says. —Tj MacIas, Kansas City Star, 10 June 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)