/ˈmɪlki/
OriginFrom Middle English mylky, melky, equivalent to milk + -y. Cognate with Saterland Frisian moalkig (“milky”), West Frisian molkich (“milky”), Dutch melkig (“milky”), German Low German melkig (“milky”), German milchig (“milky”), Danish mælkig (“milky”), Swedish mjölkig (“milky”), Icelandic mjólkugur (“milky”). Doublet of milchig.
- 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:”
“The Pails high-foaming with a milky Flood,”
“1731, John Arbuthnot, An Essay concerning the Nature of Aliments, London: J. Tonson, Chapter 3, Prop. 3, p. 51,
[…] some Plants upon breaking their Vessels yield a milky Juice; others a Yellow of pecu”
- informalOf the black in an image, appearing as dark gray rather than black.
- Containing (an especially large amount of) milk.
“milky tea; milky cocoa”
“Mrs. Anthony, their daily housekeeper, brought in the milky coffee and placed it on the breakfast table.”
“[…] we sat down […] to the old crack crack crack of eggs and the crackle crunch crunch of this black toast, very milky chai standing by in bolshy great morning mugs.”
- Containing a whitish liquid, juicy.
“1800, Robert Bloomfield, The Farmer’s Boy, London: Vernor & Hood et al., “Summer,” p. 30,
Shot up from broad rank blades that droop below,
The nodding WHEAT-EAR forms a graceful bow,
With milky kernel”
“[…] 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 ”
“1981, Martin Morolong, “The Old-Style Calendar” in Bessie Head, Serowe: Village of the Rain Wind, London: Heinemann,
The birds perch on the sorghum heads and try to eat them but the dry seed falls to ”
- colloquialCowardly.
“Has friendship such a faint and milky heart?”
“‘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,”
“The boycott of Florida orange juice, while coming from genuine feelings, is basically a milky-liberal response to an issue that needs united, vocal, public action.”
- colloquialImmature, childish.
“Gone is your fighting Youth, whom you have bred
From milkie Childhood to the years of bloud!”
“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.”
““I am no milky, modest, obedient youth, Constance. […]””
- obsoleteProducing 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,”
“[…] ye heare the Lamb by many a bleat
Woo’d to come suck the milkie Teat:”
Formsmilkier(comparative) · milkiest(superlative)