|
see also
Lactose Intolerance
| NOUN: |
|
1. A whitish liquid containing proteins, fats, lactose, and various vitamins and minerals that is produced by the mammary glands of all mature female mammals after they have given birth and serves as nourishment for their young. 2. The milk of cows, goats, or other animals, used as food by humans. 3. A liquid, such as coconut milk, milkweed sap, plant latex, or various medical emulsions, that is similar to milk in appearance. |
| VERB: |
|
Inflected forms: milked, milk·ing, milks |
TRANSITIVE
VERB: |
|
1a. To draw milk from the teat or udder of (a female mammal). b. To draw or extract a liquid from: milked the stem for its last drops of sap. 2. To press out, drain off, or remove by or as if by milking: milk venom from a snake. 3. Informal a. To draw out or extract something from, as if by milking: milked the witness for information. b. To obtain money or benefits from, in order to achieve personal gain; exploit: “The dictator and his cronies had milked their country of somewhere between $5 billion and $10 billion” (Russell Watson). |
INTRANSITIVE
VERB: |
|
1. To yield or supply milk. 2. To draw milk from a female mammal. |
| ETYMOLOGY: |
|
Middle English, from Old English milc. See melg- in Appendix I:
melg-
To rub off; also to milk. Oldest form *mel -, becoming *melg- in centum languages.
I. 1. Zero-grade form *m g-. emulsion, from Latin mulg re, to milk. 2. Full-grade form *melg-. a. milk, from Old English meolc, milc; b. milch, from Old English -milce, milch, from Germanic suffixed form *meluk-ja-, giving milk; c. milchig, from Old High German miluh, milk. a–c all from Germanic *melkan, to milk, contaminated with an unrelated noun for milk, cognate with the Greek and Latin forms given in II below, to form the blend *meluk-.
II. Included here to mark the unexplained fact that no common Indo-European noun for milk can be reconstructed is another root *g(a)lag-, *g(a)lakt-, milk, found only in: a. galactic, galacto-, galaxy; agalactia, polygala, from Greek gala (stem galakt-), milk; b. lactate, lacteal, lactescent, lacto-, latte, lettuce, from Latin lac, milk; c. the blended Germanic form cited in I. 2. above. (Pokorny m l- 722, glag- 400.)
|
| OTHER FORMS: |
|
milk'er —NOUN |
| WORD HISTORY: |
|
|
| |
|
|
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition.
Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
|
|
|
|
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
