milky

Adjective

milky (comparative milkier, superlative milkiest)

1. Resembling milk in color, consistency, smell, etc.; consisting of milk.
   • his sword, / Which was declining on the milky head / Of reverend Priam, seem'd i' the air to stick: […]c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac...
   • The Pails high-foaming with a milky Flood,1715–1720, Homer, “Book XVI”, in Alexander Pope, transl., The Iliad of Homer, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: […] W[illiam] Bowyer, for Bernard Lintott […], →OCLC, page 267, line 780

   Synonyms:

   lacteous

2. (informal) Of the black in an image, appearing as dark gray rather than black.
3. Containing (an especially large amount of) milk.
   • milky cocoa milky tea
   • Mrs. Anthony, their daily housekeeper, brought in the milky coffee and placed it on the breakfast table.1959, Muriel Spark, chapter 1, in Memento Mori, New York, N.Y.: New Directions, published 2000, page 13

   Synonyms:

   lactiferous

4. Containing a whitish liquid, juicy.
   • Shot up from broad rank blades that droop below, / The nodding WHEAT-EAR forms a graceful bow, / With milky kernels starting full, weigh’d down, / Ere yet the sun hath ting’d its head with brown; […]1800, Robert Bloomfield, The Farmer’s Boy, London: Vernor & Hood et al., “Summer,” p. 30
   • […] the servile Eries were staggering out of the corn fields laden with ripe ears; and the famished soldiers were shouting and cursing at them and tearing the corn from their arms to gnaw the raw and milky grains.1914, Robert W. Chambers, chapter 19, in The Hidden Children, New York, N.Y.: Appleton, page 575
5. (informal) Cowardly.
   • Has friendship such a faint and milky heart?c. 1605–1608 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Tymon of Athens”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
   • ‘Who said there was going to be any killing?’ The lightning flared up and showed his tight shabby jacket, the bunch of soft hair at the nape. ‘I’ve got a date, that’s all. You be careful what you say, Spicer. You aren’t milky, are you?’ / ‘I’m not milky. You got me wrong, Pinkie. I just don’t want...1938, Graham Greene, Brighton Rock, London: William Heinemann, →OCLC

   Synonyms:

   fearful

6. (informal) Immature, childish.
   • Gone is your fighting Youth, whom you have bred / From milkie Childhood to the years of bloud!1651, William D’avenant [i.e., William Davenant], “The First Book. Canto the 6 = Sixth.”, in Gondibert: An Heroick Poem, London: […] [Thomas Newcomb?] for John Holden, […], →OCLC, stanza 48, page 101
   • There were the everlasting hills around, even as they had grown for countless ages, beneath the still depths of the primeval chalk ocean, in the milky youth of this great English land.1848, [Charles Kingsley], chapter I, in Yeast: A Problem. […], London: John W[illiam] Parker, […], published 1851, →OCLC, page 15

   Synonyms:

   infantile

7. (obsolete) Producing milk, lactating.
   • As great a noyse, as when in Cymbrian plaine / An heard of Bulles, whom kindly rage doth sting, / Doe for the milky mothers want complaine, / And fill the fieldes with troublous bellowing,1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto VIII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC
   • […] ye heare the Lamb by many a bleat / Woo’d to come suck the milkie Teat:1648, Robert Herrick, “A Country Life”, in Hesperides: Or, The Works both Humane & Divine […], London: […] John Williams, and Francis Eglesfield, and are to be sold by Tho[mas] Hunt, […], →OCLC, page...

   Synonyms:

   lactifluous, nursing, with milk