milky

Etymology

It is formed from English milk + -y,^[2][3][4][5] first as milkī.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Like milk in look or consistency, and of sap that resembles milk: both before 1398, in Trevisa's translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus.^[2][6] Etymonline dates it to the late 14th century.^[3]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English the adjective already covered milk-like texture, milk-white colour and things made of milk, as in milky mete, dairy food;^[6] the milky wei was the Milky Way.^[6] Chaucer used it once.^[7] Medical writers from about 1425 used it of fluids containing chyle,^[2] and the sense "containing milk; yielding milk" is recorded from 1557.^[2][8] The figurative sense, of a person who is soft or gentle and, unfavourably, timid or weak, dates from 1602;^[2][4] Johnson (1755) listed "soft; gentle; tender; timorous".^[9] In slang milky meant cowardly from 1893,^[10] and in 19th-century thieves' cant milky meant white, as in milky ones, white linen rags.^[10] Poets used it from 1924 for a sound that is soft and pleasant.^[2] In Scots and Devon and Cornwall dialect it formed plant names such as milky-dashel, the sow-thistle.^[11]

Timeline

• before 1398 – milk-like in appearance or consistency; of milk-like sap.^[2][6]
• c. 1425 – in medicine, containing chyle.^[2]
• c. 1449 – of or consisting of milk.^[2]
• 1557 – containing milk; yielding milk.^[2]
• 1602 – of a person, gentle; timid, weak.^[2]
• 1705 – of grain, soft and moist while ripening.^[2]
• 1839 – in thieves' cant, white.^[10]
• 1893 – in slang, cowardly.^[10]
• 1924 – of a sound, soft and pleasant.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Like milk in colour or consistency; whitish and cloudy: a milky river after the thaw.^[12][4][2]
2. Made of milk or containing a lot of it: She takes her coffee milky.^[12][4][2]
3. Of a plant, producing a whitish sap.^[2][4]
4. Weak or timid; lacking spirit.^[12][4][2]

Word family

• milkiness
• milkily
• milky disease
• Milky Way

Related words

• milk
• milksop
• milch

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
7. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
8. ^ Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
9. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ a b c d Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
11. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
12. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins