Milk | v. t. [ imp. & p. p. Milked p. pr. & vb. n. Milking. ] [ 1913 Webster ] 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. [ 1913 Webster ] I have given suck, and know How tender 't is to love the babe that milks me. Shak. [ 1913 Webster ] 2. To draw from the breasts or udder; to extract, as milk; as, to milk wholesome milk from healthy cows. [ 1913 Webster ] 3. To draw anything from, as if by milking; to compel to yield profit or advantage; to plunder. Tyndale. [ 1913 Webster ] They [ the lawyers ] milk an unfortunate estate as regularly as a dairyman does his stock. London Spectator. [ 1913 Webster ] 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 ] [ 1913 Webster ]
|
Milk | n. [ 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. 'ame`lgein. √107. Cf. Milch, Emulsion, Milt soft roe of fishes. ] [ 1913 Webster ] 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. [ 1913 Webster ] 2. (Bot.) A kind of juice or sap, usually white in color, found in certain plants; latex. See Latex. [ 1913 Webster ] 3. An emulsion made by bruising seeds; as, the milk of almonds, produced by pounding almonds with sugar and water. [ 1913 Webster ] 4. (Zool.) The ripe, undischarged spat of an oyster. [ 1913 Webster ] Condensed milk. See under Condense, v. 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. [ 1913 Webster ] |