CARING

adjective (People and Society) Committed, compassionate; of a job: involving the everyday care of elderly, sick, or disabled people. Etymology: Formed by turning the present participle of the verb care into an adjective. History and Usage: Caring was first used as an adjective (in the sense 'committed, compassionate') in the mid sixties. By the end of the seventies there had been much talk in the UK of the need for a caring society supported by a strong welfare state, and certain professions (such as medicine, social work, etc.) had been recognized as caring professions. With the change of emphasis towards individual responsibility and away from the nanny state in the eighties, the caring society based on the welfare state received less attention, but the government put forward the idea of caring capitalism instead. After the conspicuous consumption of the eighties, journalists identified a change of ethos in Western societies which prompted them to christen the new decade the caring nineties. A lot of people seemed to have come from the so-called caring professions--social work, psychotherapy, and so on. New Yorker 22 Sept. 1986, p. 58 The Government had long urged local authority social service departments to act in an enabling and not just a providing capacity. They would be responsible, after consulting agencies such as doctors and other caring professions, for assessing individual needs, designing care arrangements, and ensuring that they were properly administered. Guardian 13 July 1989, p. 6 His major driving force is 'caring capitalism', showing that making money does not always mean exploiting others. Today 13 Mar. 1990, p. 6