Meaning & use
foster child
Last updated
Meaning
nouncountable
A child who lives with and is looked after by a family that is not their birth family, as arranged by an agency or court.
Grammar: The plural is foster children, and the adjective foster comes first: a foster child.
Patterns
- a foster child of someone
- take in a foster child
The couple took in a foster child when their own children left for college.
As a foster child, she lived in three different homes before she was ten.
The school has a counselor who helps each foster child settle in.
Word forms
| plural | foster children |
|---|
Common combinations
- become a foster child
- Some children become a foster child after a family emergency.
- take in a foster child
- They decided to take in a foster child for a few months.
- support a foster child
- The charity helps support a foster child with school supplies.
- foster child placement
- The agency handles each foster child placement carefully.
- former foster child
- She is a former foster child who now works as a social worker.
Synonyms and how they differ
- ward
- Ward is a legal term for a person under official guardianship, which covers more situations than foster child does.
- foster kid
- Foster kid is a casual form that sounds more everyday and, in some contexts, more blunt.
- adoptee
- An adoptee has been legally made part of a new family permanently, whereas a foster child is usually in temporary care.
Word family
Commonly confused: foster child or adopted child?
foster child vs adopted child
An adopted child becomes a permanent legal member of a family, while a foster child is usually looked after for a limited time.
Practice
What most clearly separates a foster child from an adopted child?
Choose one answer.
Foster care is typically a temporary arrangement overseen by an agency, whereas adoption permanently creates a legal parent-child relationship. The other options are untrue generalizations.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “foster child”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.