milk
A white nutritious liquid produced by mammals to feed their young.
Etymology
From Old English meolc/milc, from Proto-Germanic *meluks, from PIE *h₂melǵ- "to milk, to wipe." The original PIE sense was the hand-action of milking — a wiping or stroking motion along the udder. The product was named after the process of obtaining it.
The Journey: *h₂melǵ- → milk
*h₂melǵ-
*meluks
meolc
milk, milc
milk
Cognates Across Languages
These words in other languages descend from the same PIE root *h₂melǵ-. They are not borrowings but independent inheritances from a common ancestor.
| Language | Word |
|---|---|
| Dutch | melk |
| Greek | amélgein (to milk) |
| Latin | mulgēre (to milk) |
| German | Milch |
| Russian | molokó |
| Old Irish | melg (to milk) |
Did You Know?
Latin mulgēre, Greek amélgein, and English "milk" all come from the same PIE root. The Romans, Greeks, and Anglo-Saxons all named this liquid using a word that originally meant "the stuff you get by squeezing."
This word descends from the Proto-Indo-European root *h₂melǵ-. See the full root page for descendant trees, sound law references, and scholarly discussion.