milking

Pluralmilkings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of milk.

   She was milking the herd when the storm rolled in.

   Milking before dawn became second nature to him.

   Note

   Two separate words share this spelling. The participle descends from Old English meolcġende, whose ending became Middle English -and before settling as -ing. The noun for the act comes instead from Middle English milkinge. The participle covers every use of the verb, including the figurative one: someone milking a point in a speech, or milking a source of funds, is exploiting it beyond its fair yield.

   He kept milking the same anecdote all evening.

   The consultants were milking the grant for every dollar they could.

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The act of drawing milk from an animal such as a cow or goat.

   The evening milking produced less than usual during the dry spell.

   A single milking can take over an hour with a large herd.

   Note

   Dairy work is not the whole of it. Snake handlers speak of each milking when they massage the glands to draw out venom. The noun works both ways in grammar. It is countable for a single session (the evening milking, each milking) and uncountable for the activity in general, as in finishing milking early before the cows go out to pasture.

3. 3
   nouncolloquialcountable

   Sexual stimulation of a man by hand or mouth that brings him to the release of semen, especially when carried out on a milking table.

   The studio advertised a milking on its specially built table.

   After the milking, he lay still on the table for several minutes.

Showing meanings only. Show all 3