milky
Part of speech: adj
Morphological type: derivation
Topics: color
science
sciences
Etymology: From 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.
Base: milk
Affixes: -y
Inflected forms:
form: milkier
pos: adj
tags: comparative
form: milkiest
pos: adj
tags: superlative
Senses:
gloss: Resembling milk in color, consistency, smell, etc.; consisting of milk.
pos: adj
examples: 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 peculiar Tastes and Qualities.
[…] the kind, slightly milky odour of cattle […]
She wheels her gaze from the wall on to me. The black irises are set off by milky whites as clear as a child’s.
gloss: Of the black in an image, appearing as dark gray rather than black.
pos: adj
tags: informal
gloss: Containing (an especially large amount of) milk.
pos: adj
examples: 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.
gloss: Containing a whitish liquid, juicy.
pos: adj
examples: 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 kernels starting full, weigh’d down,
Ere yet the sun hath ting’d its head with brown;
[…] 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.
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 the ground. The birds can only peck it out of the sorghum head when it is still milky and green.
gloss: Cowardly.
pos: adj
tags: colloquial
examples: 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, Spicer. You aren’t milky, are you?’
‘I’m not milky. You got me wrong, Pinkie. I just don’t want another killing […]’
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.
gloss: Immature, childish.
pos: adj
tags: colloquial
examples: 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. […]”
He got so thoroughly into the jocund spirit that he didn’t much mind seeing Tanis drooping against the shoulder of the youngest and milkiest of the young men […]
gloss: Producing milk, lactating.
pos: adj
tags: obsolete
examples: 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:
Synonyms: nithing
puerile
Derived words: milkily
milkiness
milky-dashel
milky disease
milky quartz
milky sea
milky spore
milky stork
Milky Way
unmilky
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