Nightingale, Florence BrE AmE
(1820–1910) an English nurse who became greatly admired when she set up a hospital for soldiers in Turkey during the Crimean War. She became known as the Lady with the Lamp, because she walked around the hospital in the evenings with a lamp to check that everything was in order. She set up a school for nurses, making ↑ nursing (=the job of being a nurse) into a real profession. Someone who cares for ill people is sometimes compared to Florence Nightingale.