Milky

How to spell milky

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce milky

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does milky mean?

1. adjectiveResembling milk in colour or cloudy appearance, or containing a lot of milk.

Milky in a sentence

• The pond turned a milky shade after the heavy rain stirred up the silt.

• She preferred a milky coffee with two extra splashes of cream.

Where does milky come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a native English word, built straightforwardly from 'milk' plus the adjective-forming ending '-y'. The noun 'milk' descends from the Old English 'meoluc' or 'milc', which traces back through the Proto-Germanic 'meluks' to a root meaning 'to wipe' or 'to stroke', a reference to the action of drawing milk from an animal by hand. Close relatives survive across the Germanic family, including the Dutch 'melk' and the German 'Milch'. The adjective 'milky', meaning resembling milk in colour or cloudiness, is recorded from around the late 1300s and has stayed simple in form ever since. Because the word is so plainly built, its spelling holds no real surprise: the silent reshuffle is only that 'milk' loses nothing and simply gains a 'y'.

How the word is built

• milk (from Old English meoluc)
• -y (adjective suffix, 'having the quality of')