Word.ws English Dictionary

milk of human kindness

milk of human kindness noun: compassion shown to other people.

Noun

milk of human kindness (uncountable)

  1. (idiomatic) Compassion shown to other people.
    • Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be / What thou art promised. Yet do I fear thy nature; / It is too full o’ th’ milk of human kindness / To catch the nearest way. Thou wouldst be great, / Art not without ambition, but without / The illness should attend it.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...
    • A pwt. of butter made from the milk of human kindness.1846, editorial staff, “More Curiosities: For the new Fancy Museum”, in Scientific American, series 1, Volume 2, Issue 13, page 97

Origin of milk of human kindness

First used by Shakespeare in Macbeth (see quotations).

Questions about milk of human kindness

What does milk of human kindness mean?
Milk of human kindness means compassion shown to other people.
What part of speech is milk of human kindness?
Milk of human kindness is a noun.

Words near milk of human kindness in the dictionary

  1. milk moustache
  2. milk moustaches
  3. milk mustache
  4. milk mustaches
  5. milk of amnesia
  6. milk of human kindness
  7. milk of lime
  8. milk of magnesia
  9. milk of roses
  10. milk of sulfur
  11. milk pan

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: milk of human kindness (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.

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