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Webster 1913 Edition

Milk

Milk

(mĭlk)
,
Noun.
[AS.
meoluc
,
meoloc
,
meolc
,
milc
; akin to OFries.
meloc
, D.
melk
, G.
milch
, OHG.
miluh
, Icel.
mjōlk
, Sw.
mjölk
, Dan.
melk
, Goth.
miluks
, G.
melken
to milk, OHG.
melchan
, Lith.
milszti
, L.
mulgere
, Gr.
ἀμέλγειν
. √107. Cf.
Milch
,
Emulsion
,
Milt
soft roe of fishes.]
1.
(Physiol.)
A white fluid secreted by the mammary glands of female mammals for the nourishment of their young, consisting of minute globules of fat suspended in a solution of casein, albumin, milk sugar, and inorganic salts.
“White as morne milk.”
Chaucer.
2.
(Bot.)
A kind of juice or sap, usually white in color, found in certain plants; latex. See
Latex
.
3.
An emulsion made by bruising seeds;
as, the
milk
of almonds, produced by pounding almonds with sugar and water
.
4.
(Zool.)
The ripe, undischarged spat of an oyster.
Condensed milk
.
See under
Condense
,
Verb.
T.
–
Milk crust
(Med.)
,
vesicular eczema occurring on the face and scalp of nursing infants. See
Eczema
.
–
Milk fever
.
(a)
(Med.)
A fever which accompanies or precedes the first lactation
. It is usually transitory.
(b)
(Vet. Surg.)
A form puerperal peritonitis in cattle; also, a variety of meningitis occurring in cows after calving.
–
Milk glass
,
glass having a milky appearance.
–
Milk knot
(Med.)
,
a hard lump forming in the breast of a nursing woman, due to obstruction to the flow of milk and congestion of the mammary glands.
–
Milk leg
(Med.)
,
a swollen condition of the leg, usually in puerperal women, caused by an inflammation of veins, and characterized by a white appearance occasioned by an accumulation of serum and sometimes of pus in the cellular tissue.
–
Milk meats
,
food made from milk, as butter and cheese.
[Obs.]
Bailey.
–
Milk mirror
.
Same as
Escutcheon
, 2.
–
Milk molar
(Anat.)
,
one of the deciduous molar teeth which are shed and replaced by the premolars.
–
Milk of lime
(Chem.)
,
a watery emulsion of calcium hydrate, produced by macerating quicklime in water.
–
Milk parsley
(Bot.)
,
an umbelliferous plant (
Peucedanum palustre
) of Europe and Asia, having a milky juice.
–
Milk pea
(Bot.)
,
a genus (
Galactia
) of leguminous and, usually, twining plants.
–
Milk sickness
(Med.)
,
See
milk sickness
in the vocabulary.
–
Milk snake
(Zool.)
,
a harmless American snake (
Ophibolus triangulus
, or
Ophibolus eximius
). It is variously marked with white, gray, and red. Called also
milk adder
,
chicken snake
,
house snake
, etc.
–
Milk sugar
.
(Physiol. Chem.)
See
Lactose
, and
Sugar of milk
(below).
–
Milk thistle
(Bot.)
,
an esculent European thistle (
Silybum marianum
), having the veins of its leaves of a milky whiteness.
–
Milk thrush
.
(Med.)
See
Thrush
.
–
Milk tooth
(Anat.)
,
one of the temporary first set of teeth in young mammals; in man there are twenty.
–
Milk tree
(Bot.)
,
a tree yielding a milky juice, as the cow tree of South America (
Brosimum Galactodendron
), and the
Euphorbia balsamifera
of the Canaries, the milk of both of which is wholesome food.
–
Milk vessel
(Bot.)
,
a special cell in the inner bark of a plant, or a series of cells, in which the milky juice is contained. See
Latex
.
–
Rock milk
.
See
Agaric mineral
, under
Agaric
.
–
Sugar of milk
.
The sugar characteristic of milk; a hard white crystalline slightly sweet substance obtained by evaporation of the whey of milk. It is used in pellets and powder as a vehicle for homeopathic medicines, and as an article of diet. See
Lactose
.

Milk

(mĭlk)
,
Verb.
T.
[
imp. & p. p.
Milked
(mĭlkt)
;
p. pr. & vb. n.
Milking
.]
1.
To draw or press milk from the breasts or udder of, by the hand or mouth; to withdraw the milk of.
“Milking the kine.”
Gay.
I have given suck, and know
How tender ’t is to love the babe that
milks
me.
Shakespeare
2.
To draw from the breasts or udder; to extract, as milk;
as, to
milk
wholesome milk from healthy cows
.
3.
To draw anything from, as if by milking; to compel to yield profit or advantage; to plunder.
Tyndale.
They [the lawyers]
milk
an unfortunate estate as regularly as a dairyman does his stock.
London Spectator.
To milk the street
,
to squeeze the smaller operators in stocks and extract a profit from them, by alternately raising and depressing prices within a short range; – said of the large dealers.
[Cant]
–
To milk a telegram
,
to use for one's own advantage the contents of a telegram belonging to another person.
[Cant]

Webster 1828 Edition

Milk

MILK

, n.
1.
A white fluid or liquor, secreted by certain glands in female animals, and drawn from the breasts for the nourishment of their young.
2.
The white juice of certain plants.
3.
Emulsion made by bruising seeds.

MILK

,
Verb.
T.
[L. mulgeo.]
1.
To draw or press milk from the breasts by the hand, as, to milk a cow.
2.
To suck. [Not used.]

Definition 2024

milk

milk

English

A glass of cow's milk.

Noun

milk ‎(countable and uncountable, plural milks)

  1. (uncountable) A white liquid produced by the mammary glands of female mammals to nourish their young. From certain animals, especially cows, it is a common food for humans as a beverage or used to produce various dairy products such as butter, cheese, and yogurt.
    • 2007 September 24, Chris Horseman (interviewee), Emily Harris (reporter), “Global Dairy Demand Drives Up Prices”, Morning Edition, National Public Radio
      […] there's going to be that much less milk available to cover any other uses. Which means whether it's liquid milk or whether it's [milk that's been turned into] cheese or yogurt, the price gets pulled up right across the board.
  2. (countable, informal) An individual serving of milk.
    Table three ordered three milks. (Formally: The guests at table three ordered three glasses of milk.)
  3. (uncountable) A white (or whitish) liquid obtained from a vegetable source such as soy beans, coconuts, almonds, rice, oats. Also called non-dairy milk.
    • circa 1430 (reprinted 1888), Thomas Austin (editor), Two Fifteenth-century Cookery-books. Harleian ms. 279 (ab. 1430), & Harl. ms. 4016 (ab. 1450), with Extracts from Ashmole ms. 1429, Laud ms. 553, & Douce ms. 55, London: N. Trübner & Co. for the Early English Text Society, volume I (Original Series; 91), OCLC 374760, page 11:
      Soupes dorye. — Take gode almaunde mylke […] caste þher-to Safroun an Salt […]
    • 1962 (quoting a 1381 text), Hans Kurath and Sherman M. Kuhn (editors), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, ISBN 978-0-472-01044-8, page 1242:
      dorrẹ̅, dōrī adj. & n. […] cook. glazed with a yellow substance; pome(s ~, sopes ~. […] 1381 Pegge Cook. Recipes page 114: For to make Soupys dorry. Nym onyons […] Nym wyn […] toste wyte bred and do yt in dischis, and god Almande mylk.
  4. The ripe, undischarged spat of an oyster.
  5. (uncountable, slang) Semen.

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

References

Etymology 2

From Old English melcan, from Proto-Germanic *melkaną, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₂melǵ-, the same root as the noun. Compare Dutch and German melken, Danish malke, Norwegian mjølke, also Latin mulgeō ‎(“I milk”), Ancient Greek ἀμέλγω ‎(amélgō, “I milk”), Albanian mjel ‎(“to milk”), Russian молоко́ ‎(molokó), Lithuanian mélžti, Tocharian A mālk-.

Verb

milk ‎(third-person singular simple present milks, present participle milking, simple past and past participle milked)

  1. (transitive) To express milk from (a mammal, especially a cow).
    The farmer milked his cows.
    • Shakespeare
      I have given suck, and know / How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me.
  2. (transitive) To draw (milk) from the breasts or udder.
    to milk wholesome milk from healthy cows
  3. (transitive) To express any liquid (from any creature).
  4. (transitive, figuratively) To make excessive use of (a particular point in speech or writing, etc.); to take advantage of (a situation).
    When the audience began laughing, the comedian milked the joke for more laughs.
    • London Spectator
      They [the lawyers] milk an unfortunate estate as regularly as a dairyman does his stock.
  5. (of an electrical storage battery) To give off small gas bubbles during the final part of the charging operation.

Translations

References

  1. ↑ "Milk" versus "melk": Have you noticed that the way we talk is changing? Linguists have, CBC News, 5 August 2015 (2:44 PM PT)

See also

Scanian

Alternative forms

  • mjælk

Etymology

From Old Norse mjǫlk, from Proto-Germanic *meluks.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): [méɪlk]

Noun

milk m

  1. milk

Etymology

From Middle English milk, mylk, melk, mulc, from Old English meolc, meoluc ‎(“milk”), from Proto-Germanic *meluks, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂melǵ-.

Pronunciation

Similar Results