Word.ws English Dictionary

milk

/mɪlk/

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Canada/mɛlk/

milk noun: a white liquid produced by the mammary glands of female mammals to nourish their young. From certain animals, especially cows, it is also called dairy milk and is a common food for humans as a beverage or used to produce various dairy products such as butter, cheese, and yogurt.

milk: a white liquid produced by the mammary glands of female mammals to nourish their young. From...
Image: Stefan Kühn, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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 also called dairy milk and is a common food for humans as a beverage or used to produce various dairy products such as butter, cheese, and yogurt.
    • Skyr is a product made of curdled milk.
    • […] 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.2007 September 24, Chris Horseman (interviewee), Emily Harris (reporter), “Global Dairy Demand Drives Up Prices”, Morning Edition, National Public Radio
  2. (broadly, uncountable) A white (or whitish) liquid obtained from a vegetable source such as almonds, coconuts, oats, rice, or soy beans.
    • Where it does fall down, however, is its nutritional value. While oats are largely a healthy grain to include in your diet, the milk is highly diluted with water, giving it little nutritional value.2018 September 16, Alexandra Spring, “'Milk' mania: why most alternatives aren't great – but camel milk just might be”, in The Guardian
    • For environmentally minded consumers, the news is hard to swallow: almond milk is not healthy for the planet and the popular milk substitute is especially hard on bees.2020 January 29, Annette McGivney, “Almonds are out. Dairy is a disaster. So what milk should we drink?”, in The Guardian
  3. (countable, informal) An individual serving of milk.
    • Table three ordered three milks.
  4. (countable, invariable) An individual portion of milk, such as found in a creamer, for tea and coffee.
    • I take my tea with two milks and two sugars.
    • I take my tea with two milk and two sugar.
  5. A light white color inspired by the color of milk, usually cow's milk.
  6. The ripe, undischarged spat of an oyster.
  7. (slang, uncountable, vulgar) Semen.

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.
    • I haue giuen Sucke, and know / How tender 'tis to loue the Babe that milkes me[…]c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
  2. (intransitive, transitive) To draw (milk) from the breasts or udder.
    • to milk wholesome milk from healthy cows
  3. (intransitive) Of a dairy cow, to produce milk.
    • ‘The boss’s cows must be milking well,’ he said, ‘or has he added to his herd?’1911, ‘Steel Rudd’, The Book of Dan, Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, published 1970, page 62
  4. (intransitive, rare, transitive) To secrete (milk) from the breasts or udder.
    • The black cow milking white milk, black hen on the nest laying white eggs.1890, James George Frazer, The Golden Bough, volume 2, page 84
  5. (transitive) To express a liquid from a creature.
    • The Australian government has a team that regularly milks various snakes for venom to use creating serums and antivenoms.
    • He captures animals for zoos around the world... and milks cobra snakes for their venom.1966, Bruce Brown, director, The Endless Summer
  6. (figuratively, transitive) To make excessive use of (a particular point in speech or writing, a source of funds, etc.); to exploit; to take advantage of (something).
    • When the audience began laughing, the comedian milked the joke for more laughs.
    • July 21, 1877, "The Block in the Courts" in The Spectator
      They [the lawyers] milk an unfortunate estate as regularly as a dairyman does his stock.
  7. To give off small gas bubbles during the final part of the charging operation.
  8. (transitive, vulgar) To masturbate a male to ejaculation, especially for the amusement or satisfaction of the masturbator rather than the person masturbated.
    • Controlled milking can actually establish and consolidate a mistress’s dominance over her sub rather than diminish it.
    • “No, no, no! When a male is in chas-ti-ty,” (Clive always drew out this word and also slavery, emphasizing every syllable to give it extra importance) “he should receive regular milking to maintain good hygiene.” (Yet more kinky behavior cloaked as healthy living.) “Milking helps flush out the...2015, Joyce Snyder, Mistress Pussycat: Adventures with Submissive Men in the World of Femdom, Headpress, →ISBN
    Synonyms:
    masturbate

Proper noun capitalized: Milk

Milk (plural Milks)

  1. A surname.
    • American gay rights activist Harvey Milk was known for keeping his face and name on the front pages of San Francisco’s newspapers.2025 June 4, Andy Rose, “Gay rights icon Harvey Milk’s legacy slighted by decision to rename Navy ship”, in CNN

milk meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

milk in Hindi

liquid
दूध dūdh, शीर śīr

milk in Tamil

liquid
பால் pāl
liquid from a vegetable source — see also plant milk
பால் pāl
to express milk from mammal
கற kaṟa
to draw from the breasts or udder
கற kaṟa

milk in Marathi

liquid
दूध dūdh

milk in Urdu

liquid
دُودھ dūdh, شِیر śīr
More languagesFewer languages
milk in Bengali
দুধ dudh
milk in Telugu
పాలు pālu, క్షీరము kṣīramu, పితుకు pituku
milk in Malayalam
പാൽ pāl
milk in Kannada
ಹಾಲು hālu
milk in Punjabi
ਦੁੱਧ duddha
milk in Gujarati
દૂધ dūdh
milk in Odia
ଖିର khira, ଦୁଧ dudha
milk in Sanskrit
दुग्ध dugdha, क्षीर kṣīra, पायस pāyasa
milk in Sinhala
කිරි kiri
milk in Assamese
গাখীৰ gakhir, খিৰোৱা khirüa
milk in Nepali
दुध dudh, दूध dūdh, दुहुनु duhunu
milk in Pashto
شيدې šide, لوشل, لوغل
milk in Tagalog
gatas, gatasan, pigas
milk in Arabic
حَلِيب ḥalīb, لَبَن laban, حَلَبَ ḥalaba
milk in Malay
susu, perah, peras
milk in Indonesian
susu
milk in Persian
دوشیدن dušidan, دوختن duxtan
milk in Thai
น้ำนม náam-nom, นม nom, รีดนม rîit-nom
milk in Vietnamese
sữa, vắt sữa
milk in Myanmar
နို့ nui.
Sindhi
شير šīru
Dhivehi
ކިރު kiru
Kashmiri
دۄد dọd, द्वद dwad
Dzongkha
འོ་མ 'o ma

Examples of milk in a sentence

  • In the West it's fairly normal to drink milk in various forms into adulthood.2017, Adam Rutherford, A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived, The Experiment, →ISBN, page 75:
  • Different milks have varying amounts of fats, proteins, and lactose, and arguments abound over the relative merits and possible harms of each.2018, Mark Kurlansky, “Chapter 1: The First Taste of Sweetness”, in Milk!: A 10,000-Year Food Fracas, Bloomsbury, →ISBN:
  • She just sat there drinking cup after cup of strong coffee, with two milks and two sugars.2014, Don Eggspuehler, Teachings From Pop, Author House, →ISBN, page 459:
  • Five minutes later, he returned with Justin's large coffee with two milk and two sweeteners and a black coffee for himself.2015, Carolyn Arnold, City of Gold: (Mathew Connor Adventure Series Book 1), Hibbert & Stiles Publishing Inc., →ISBN:

All 40 example sentences with milk

Synonyms of milk

All synonyms of milk

Forms of milk

Noun
pluralmilks
Verb
third-person singular presentmilks
present participlemilking
past participlemilked
pastmilked
Proper noun
pluralMilks

Past tense of milk: milked

Plural of milk: milks

Origin of milk

From Middle English milk, mylk, melk, mulc, from Old English meolc, meoluc (“milk”), from Proto-West Germanic *meluk (“milk”), from Proto-Germanic *meluks (“milk”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂melǵ- (“milk, to milk”). Cognates Cognate with West Frisian molke (“milk”), Dutch melk (“milk”), Dutch Low Saxon melk (“milk”), German Milch (“milk”), German Low German Melk (“milk”), Yiddish מילך (milkh, “milk”), Danish mælk (“milk”), Faroese and Icelandic mjólk (“milk”), Norn *mjølk (“milk”), Norwegian Bokmål melk, mjølk (“milk”), Norwegian Nynorsk mjølk (“milk”), Swedish mjölk (“milk”), Gothic 𐌼𐌹𐌻𐌿𐌺𐍃 (miluks, “milk”), Greek αμέλγω (amélgo, “to milk”), Albanian mjel (“to milk”), Latvian malks, Lithuanian malkas, Belarusian малако́ (malakó, “milk”), Bulgarian мля́ко (mljáko, “milk”), Czech mléko, Macedonian мле́ко (mléko, “milk”), Polish mleko (“milk”), Russian and Ukrainian молоко́ (molokó, “milk”), Serbo-Croatian mlijéko (“milk”), Slovak mlieko (“milk”), Slovene mlẹ́ko (“milk”), Welsh blith, Tocharian A malke.

From Middle English milken, 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 (“to milk”), Ancient Greek ἀμέλγω (amélgō, “to milk”), Albanian mjel (“to milk”), Russian молоко́ (molokó), Lithuanian mélžti, Tocharian A mālk-.

Words formed from milk

Phrases with milk

158 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with milk

12 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about milk

What does milk mean?
Milk means a white liquid produced by the mammary glands of female mammals to nourish their young. From certain animals, especially cows, it is also called dairy milk and is a common food for humans as a beverage or used to produce various dairy products such as butter, cheese, and yogurt.
What is milk in Hindi?
Milk in Hindi is दूध (dūdh), शीर (śīr). See Milk meaning in Hindi.
How do you use milk in a sentence?
In the West it's fairly normal to drink milk in various forms into adulthood.
What part of speech is milk?
Milk can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce milk?
Milk is pronounced /mɪlk/.
What is the plural of milk?
The plural of milk is milks.

Words near milk in the dictionary

  1. militsiyas
  2. milium
  3. Milișăuți
  4. Miljacka
  5. Miljenko
  6. milk
  7. milk abscess
  8. milk abscesses
  9. milk acid
  10. milk albuminate
  11. milk albuminates

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: milk (page history and authors); Milk (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-uk-milk.ogg, en-us-milk.ogg.

Cite this entry: “milk.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/milk. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.