milk
/mɪlk
/noun [mass noun]
1An opaque white fluid rich in fat and protein, secreted by female mammals for the nourishment of their young: a healthy mother will produce enough milk for her baby...
- Mammals produce milk for their young until they are weaned.
- As in all mammals, the female provides milk for her offspring.
- A female brown bear's milk is very rich in fat and calories, so the cub grows quickly.
1.1The milk from cows (or goats or sheep) as consumed by humans: a glass of milk...
- We have more than enough to make feta and soft goat cheeses, with milk left over for drinking and cooking.
- I drank a glass of milk before making a cheese, peanut butter and lettuce sandwich.
- Add the cream cheese and milk to the spinach mixture.
Synonyms
informal cow juice
1.2The white juice of certain plants: coconut milk...
- There is the first extract or the thick creamy milk from the scraped coconut.
1.3A creamy-textured liquid with a particular ingredient or use: cleansing milk...
- Hurrah for easy-to-use home colouring kits bursting with gentle ingredients like apricot milk, jojoba and wheat-germ oil.
- Start by cleansing the skin with the appropriate milk and lotion and proceed with adequate exfoliation according to skin type.
verb [with object]
1Draw milk from (a cow or other animal), either by hand or mechanically: two hours later he was up again to milk the cows (as noun milking) I had to start the milking...
- Wandering into a shed one evening, he found a couple dozen goats being milked by a mechanism run by a pump.
- He grew up on the couple's farm in Bugthorpe where he loved to help out feeding the animals and milking the cows.
- ‘Cows were milked by hand and milk was separated from cream with a hand-cranked separator,’ she says.
1.1 [no object] (Of an animal, especially a cow) produce milk: the breed does seem to milk better in harder conditions...
- Cows won't milk as well and calves can't easily pick the good grass out of the old growth.
- Healthier cows milking at a lower rate will stay in the herd longer, he thinks.
- Today, some swine producers have totally abandoned the procedure or resect needle teeth only when sows are milking poorly or if exudative epidermitis is present in the herd.
1.2Extract sap, venom, or other substances from: scientists have found a new way of producing an anti-clotting agent—by milking a leech...
- He's now milking tarantulas for their venom, and has recently been granted a licence to export that venom.
- People are bitten by exotic snakes while handling or feeding them, cleaning out their cages, milking them of their venoms, or attempting to steal them.
- Chief among those experts is Lyn Abra, who milked funnel-webs for their venom for three decades, first for Sutherland's research and then for commercial antivenin production.
Synonyms
draw off, siphon, bleed, pump off, tap, drain, extract, withdraw
2Exploit or defraud by taking small amounts of money over a period of time: executives milked the health plan’s funds for their personal use...
- What have you been doing all of these years, milking him for money?
- Money has clearly been milked out of agencies and into the Olympics without regard to consequences.
- Maybe I should have thought of this before I milked my parents for money.
Synonyms
exploit, take advantage of, cash in on, impose on, bleed, suck dry, fleece, squeeze, wring, blackmail
2.1Get all possible advantage from (a situation): the newspapers were milking the story for every possible drop of drama...
- Some, perhaps sensing that the window of opportunity is closing, are doing their best to milk the situation for all it is worth.
- I thought I'd milked the situation as far as I dared.
- I hope that operatives are preparing to milk this situation.
2.2Elicit a favourable reaction from (an audience) and prolong it: he milked the crowd for every last drop of applause...
- I would say that, you know, a lot of comedians milk an audience.
- Wooley constantly runs from one end of the stage to the other, madly working the washboards, milking the audience's applause.
- Never missing a comic beat, their charisma worked every time and they knew how to milk the audience dry.
Phrases
in milk
it's no use crying over spilt (or spilled) milk
milk and honey
milk of human kindness
Origin
Old English milc, milcian, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch melk and German Milch, from an Indo-European root shared by Latin mulgere and Greek amelgein 'to milk'.
The ancient root of milk may have meant ‘to rub’, and so would refer to hand-milking animals by pulling on their teats. It is connected with the Latin word mulgere ‘to milk’, the source also of emulsion. The phrase the milk of human kindness comes from Shakespeare's Macbeth. Lady Macbeth expresses her suspicion that her husband might not use violence to seize the Scottish throne: ‘Yet I do fear thy nature; it is too full o' the milk of human kindness / To catch the nearest way.’ In the Book of Exodus in the Bible the Promised Land of Israel is described as ‘a land flowing with milk and honey’ giving us a term for prosperity and abundance.