dairy

Pluraldairies (some meanings)

1. 1
   noununcountable

   Products made from milk, such as butter, cheese, and cream.

   She avoids dairy because it upsets her stomach.

   Butter, cream, and cheese are all classed as dairy.

   Note

   A mass noun with no plural, and the shortest of three ways to say the same thing: dairy, dairy products, dairy produce. The bare form is at home in talk about diet, where it sits easily in a list of things given up. Alix Strauss, writing in 2023, quotes a man who has "stopped alcohol, caffeine and dairy." You cut out dairy; you do not cut out a dairy.

2. 2
   adjective

   Made from or relating to products produced from milk.

   The dairy aisle sits at the back of the supermarket.

   Many baked goods rely on dairy ingredients like butter and cream.

3. 3
   nouncountable or uncountable

   A building or room for processing milk and making butter, cheese, and similar products, often located on a farm.

   Workers in the dairy separated the cream before pressing the cheese.

   The old stone dairy stayed cool even in the summer heat.

   Similarcreamery

   Note

   The working room the word began with. Its name records who worked there: Middle English deyerie, from Anglo-Norman deye, "dairymaid", plus the -ery that names a place of work, as in bakery or brewery. In this sense a dairy is the room or building where milk is handled, not the herd or the land. For the whole enterprise, English uses the dairy farm.

4. 4
   adjective

   Belonging to or concerned with the industries that produce milk and process it.

   Government subsidies have long supported the dairy sector.

   She studied veterinary science before joining a large dairy operation.

5. 5
   nouncountable or uncountable

   A farm where cows or other animals are kept to produce milk.

   He inherited the dairy from his grandfather and modernized the milking parlor.

   Drought forced several local dairies to sell off part of their herds.

6. 6
   adjective

   Made from animal milk rather than from non-milk substitutes.

   The café offers both dairy and almond-based lattes.

   Read the label carefully to tell the dairy cheese from the vegan one.

   Oppositenondairy, vegan, plant-based

   Note

   A narrower use that only makes sense once milk has rivals. "Is this milk dairy or soy?" sounds circular until you hear dairy as "from an animal." Here the word sorts a product against its substitutes, so it pairs with soy or almond rather than with cheese and butter. It often stands after the noun, as the answer to a question.

7. 7
   nouncountable or uncountable

   A shop that sells milk products such as butter and cheese.

   The little dairy on the square is known for its fresh churned butter.

   Several dairies in town compete to stock the finest local cheeses.

   Similarcreamery

8. 8
   nounNew Zealandcountable or uncountable

   A small neighborhood shop selling groceries and everyday goods.

   I stopped at the dairy to pick up bread and the evening paper.

   Most neighborhoods have a dairy within a short walk.

   Note

   New Zealand's everyday word for the corner shop. In New Zealand English the dairy is where you go for bread, a newspaper or a snack, whether or not it sells any cheese. A visitor might expect the milk shop, but the word covers what other varieties call a corner store, superette or minimart.

9. 9
   adjectiveBritish

   Used on food labels to show that a product's fat comes entirely from milk or milk products, as in dairy ice cream.

   In the UK, a dairy ice cream must contain milk fat rather than vegetable oil.

   Shoppers look for the dairy description when they want a richer dessert.

   Note

   A British labeling term, and stricter than the animal-milk meaning. A dairy ice cream is one whose fat comes only from milk sources, with no vegetable fat in the mix. On the packet the word is a promise about the fat, not just a sign that milk is present, so it is worth reading as a precise claim rather than a general description.

10. 10
    nounslangvulgarcountable or uncountableplural

    A vulgar slang term for a woman's breast.

    He earned a sharp slap for his coarse remark about the barmaid's dairy.

    The drunk leered and muttered something about the serving girl's dairies.

    Note

    Vulgar slang, used chiefly in the plural: dairies rather than a dairy. The image borrows the word's farm meaning of a source of milk. Kate Moore's To Seduce an Angel (2011) holds it at arm's length as a character's word: "her dairies as Wallop had called them." That distance is the safe way to handle it, because said directly it is crude and gives offense.

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