milk cow
Americannoun
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a cow that is raised for its milk rather than for beef.
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Informal. a source of easily gained income; profitable venture.
The new subsidiary turns out to be a real milk cow.
Etymology
Origin of milk cow
late Middle English word dating back to 1400–50
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Then he bought a turning plow, some seed corn, and a milk cow.
From Literature
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Dutch, French, Portuguese and Belgian families each kept a few, a dozen, or a couple of hundred milk cows on land that’s now too expensive even to keep chickens.
From Los Angeles Times
The latter film is one of Keaton’s lesser-known but still brilliantly limned stone-faced satires, in this case involving cowpokes and its star’s tender feelings for a milk cow.
“It’s a piece of our family history. Kids, look at how they used to milk cows.…”
From Literature
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"We obviously still need people who'll milk cows and drive tractors but the industry is much more than that - drone operators, people with very specialist technical skills, data analysts are required too."
From BBC
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.