# milk

> English word · Noun · IPA /mɪlk/ · frequency rank #2,223

## Definitions
1. A white liquid produced by the mammary glands of female mammals to nourish their young. From certain animals, especially cows, it is also called dairy milk and is a common food for humans as a beverage or used to produce various dairy products such as butter, cheese, and yogurt.
2. A white (or whitish) liquid obtained from a vegetable source such as almonds, coconuts, oats, rice, or soy beans.
3. An individual serving of milk.
4. An individual portion of milk, such as found in a creamer, for tea and coffee.
5. The ripe, undischarged spat of an oyster.
6. Semen.

## Etymology
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.

## Easily confused with
- **ML** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/milk-vs-ml)
- **MK** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/milk-vs-mk)
- **mix** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/milk-vs-mix)
- **min** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/milk-vs-min)
- **MLB** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/milk-vs-mlb)
- **mit** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/milk-vs-mit)
- **mir** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/milk-vs-mir)
- **MLA** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/milk-vs-mla)
- **mol** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/milk-vs-mol)
- **MLM** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/milk-vs-mlm)
- **MLK** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/milk-vs-mlk)
- **miz** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/milk-vs-miz)
- **mim** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/milk-vs-mim)
- **MLG** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/milk-vs-mlg)
- **mind** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/milk-vs-mind)
- **miss** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/milk-vs-miss)
- **mine** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/milk-vs-mine)
- **mini** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/milk-vs-mini)
- **mill** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/milk-vs-mill)
- **monk** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/milk-vs-monk)

## Common misspellings (6)
`imlk`, `mikl`, `milkk`, `millk`, `mlik`, `mmilk`

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/word/milk