milk
n. C / Un. a white liquid that comes from cows, goats, or some plants. You drink it or use it to make food like cheese and butter.
n. an opaque white fluid rich in fat and protein, secreted by female mammals for the nourishment of their young; also used to describe plant-based substitutes.
I always put a little milk in my morning coffee.
The recipe requires two cups of whole milk to make the sauce thick and creamy.
While dairy remains a staple in many diets, the market has expanded to include various plant-based alternatives like almond and oat milk to accommodate different dietary needs.
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 (“I milk”), Ancient Greek ἀμέλγω (amélgō, “I milk”), Albanian mjel (“to milk”), Russian молоко́ (molokó), Lithuanian mélžti, Tocharian A mālk-.
Uncountable when referring to the substance in general; countable when referring to specific types or individual servings in a commercial context.