a service involving care for other people's children
"The family hired a professional childcare provider to look after their toddlers while they went to work."
The act, practice, or occupation of supervising and taking care of young children.
"After school, she worked as a childcare provider to supervise the neighborhood children while their parents were at work."
In plain English: Childcare is taking care of young children so their parents can work or do other things.
"She decided to hire an agency for reliable childcare while she went back to work."
Usage: Childcare refers to the professional supervision and nurturing of young children rather than informal babysitting by family members. It is often used in contexts involving paid services, government programs, or institutional settings like daycare centers.
The word childcare is a straightforward combination of the words child and care that emerged to describe the act of looking after young people. It was formed by joining these two existing terms to create a specific phrase for this common responsibility.