OE Prudentius Glosses (Boulogne 189) in H. D. Meritt Old Eng. Prudentius Glosses (1959) 17 mulctra : melcingfata.

a1398 J. Trevisa tr. Bartholomaeus Anglicus De Proprietatibus Rerum (BL Add.) f. 331^v Mulgarium is a milkyng vessel.

a1425 Medulla Gram. (Stonyhurst) f. 42^v Mulcrar, tyme [read tyne] of mylkynge.

Promptorium Parvulorum (Harl. 221) 477/1 Stoppe, vessel for mylkynge,..multra.

c1574–5 G. Harvey Let.-bk. (1884) 144 P. watchd her going a milking a mile from y^e towne.

1615 G. Markham Eng. Hus-wife in Countrey Contentments ii. 108 In the milking of a Cowe the woman must sit on the neare side of the Cowe.

1667 in J. B. Craven Church Life S. Ronaldshay & Burray (1911) 56 With the melking of hir kowes.

1707 E. Ward London Terræ-filius No. 2. 20 The Innocent Squeezing of Cows Dugs, to the Wicked Milking of Town Bulls.

1785 F. Grose Classical Dict. Vulgar Tongue at Whow-ball To make the cow stand still in milking.

1834 W. Youatt Cattle iii. 18 Their qualities may be referred to three points; their working, fattening, and milking.

1860 J. Tyndall Glaciers of Alps i. iii. 24 Milking was over when we returned to the châlet.

1910 Encycl. Brit. I. 229/1 Milk is the lacteal secretion obtained by the complete milking of one or more healthy cows.

1983 ‘W. Trevor’ Fools of Fortune i. ii. 24 It was pleasant in..the big old dairy at that time of day, everything clean again after milking.

1538 T. Elyot Dict. at Mulctra The mylkyng, the payle, wherinto it is milked.

1611 R. Cotgrave Dict. French & Eng. Tongues at Mousson A Cowes..milking; as much as she yeelds at a milking.

1850 J. Struthers Life in Poet. Wks. I. p. xxix The whole milking went to the floor.

1969 H. Orton & P. M. Tilling Surv. Eng. Dial. III. i. 294 Yield, milking, quantity.

1837 N. Whittock et al. Compl. Bk. Trades 31 The next process is called the milking, or the souring.

1924 S. R. Roget Dict. Electr. Terms 154/1 Milking, the operation of fully charging individual cells of an accumulator battery; so called on account of the milky appearance of the electrolyte when the cell is fully charged, due to the presence of small bubbles of gas.

1936 F. Lundberg Imperial Hearst x. 326 Hearst's sons were on the payroll for sums in excess of the average paid the top executives... This is what is known in Wall Street as ‘milking’.

1975 Times 5 Aug. 15/2 Company inspectors..are particularly examining what they describe as ‘the milking’ of Court Line's building interests to support other activities.

1994 Vancouver Sun 26 Mar. b1/2 Yann Piat thought that as a member of parliament it was safe for her to fight the extortion rackets, drug trafficking and milking of public funds that flourish on France's most glamorous and shady playground.

1890 New Sydenham Soc. Lexicon Milking-cramp, see Milkmaid's cramp.

1891 T. Hardy Tess of the D'Urbervilles I. xvii. 224 Without the milking-gear nobody could have guessed what he was.

2000 Financial Times (Nexis) 5 Aug. (Food & Drink section) 14 Three men are working in the pit..swiftly attaching the suckers of the electric milking machines to the teats of the ewes..then moving the milking gear along to the next set of ewes.

1850 New Eng. Farmer 2 282 Gutta percha patent milking machines are in use on Long Island.

1891 Daily News 14 Oct. 2/6 A good deal of curiosity was attracted..by Mr. J. Gray's ‘milking machine’.

1945 ‘G. Orwell’ Animal Farm v. 37 A windmill, which could..supply the farm with electrical power..and would also run..an electric milking machine.

1988 Farmer's Weekly (Durban) 24 June 50/3 In dairying, the milking machine is the primary element in materials handling.

a1425 Medulla Gram. (Stonyhurst) f. 42^v Mulcrarium, multrum, a mulkynge payle.

1548 T. Cooper Bibliotheca Eliotæ (rev. ed.) at Mulctrale A mylkyng payle.

1638 Inventory Sept. in W. H. Browne Arch. Maryland (1887) IV. 48 1. milking paile.

1743 W. Ellis Mod. Husbandman (Dublin ed.) June xv. 123 The Milking Pails, that must be used here, are very broad and shallow.

1897 S. R. Crockett Lads' Love xvi. 176 The white streams hissed..into the milking pails.

1988 S. Afr. Panorama Apr. 12/1 It faces Mandawe Hill, at the top of which is a little church resembling a milking pail.

1511 Accts. St. John's Hosp., Canterbury (Canterbury Cathedral Archives: CCA-U13/4) For a new mylkyng pot jd. ob.

1928 Jrnl. Royal Anthropol. Inst. 56 58 The kituli, or milking-pot,..is held between the thighs, the boy either sitting on a stool or squatting on his heels.

1999 Western Daily Press (Bristol) (Nexis) 1 June 3 Close by was a triangular milking pot, a triangular knife, and a round ball thought to be made from a stalagmite.

1853 G. B. Earp N.Z. viii. 123 A milking yard, at one end of which is placed the milking shed, cow bails, and calf house.

a1930 ‘H. Stone’ in W. Murdoch & H. Drake-Brockman Austral. Short Stories (1951) 125 It was a silent milking shed that evening.

1970 Kenya Farmer Feb. 36/1 ‘Oh Gawd!’ said Fred the farmer as he came stomping up the verandah steps, his boots looking more as if he had walked from Timboroa than from the milking sheds two hundred yards away.

2000 Herald Express (Torquay) (Nexis) 12 Dec. The herds of red South Devon cows..made their way through the village centre on their way to the milking sheds nearby.

1824 Sydney Gaz. 30 Sept. 3/5 Impounded,..a Red Cow, with a white flank, branded on the milking side R.B.

1844 H. Stephens Bk. of Farm II. 456 There is one side of a cow which is usually called the milking side—that is, the left side.

1891 T. Hardy Tess of the D'Urbervilles II. xxiv. 37 She was milking Old Pretty thus, and the sun chancing to be on the milking-side it shone flat upon her pink-gowned form.

1995 Dayton (Ohio) Daily News (Nexis) 2 Apr. b4 Those who have had the pleasure of performing that early-morning chore have since told her, there's no ‘wrong’ milking side.

1577 in J. Raine Wills & Inventories N. Counties Eng. (1835) I. 421 In The Kitchinge And Larder House..iiij milken skeales, and one wassinge toobe.

1599 Hist. Syr Clyomon & Clamydes sig. F^v But theres Frumptons wench in the freese scake, it will do thee good to see What canuosing is at the milking time, betweene her and mee.

a1616 W. Shakespeare Winter's Tale (1623) iv. iv. 243 Is there not milking-time ? View more context for this quotation

1852 N. Hawthorne Blithedale Romance iv. 39 Let her..help in the kitchen, and take the cow-breath at milking-time.

1989 M. Nabb Death in Springtime (ed. 2) 62 He normally hung about the house all day and disappeared before his father brought the sheep back from pasture so as to avoid milking time.

1725 A. Pope tr. Homer Odyssey II. ix. 263 Full pails, and vessels of the milking trade.

1997 Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram (Nexis) 7 Oct. (Business section) 1 (heading) Widow is forced out of farming after 56 years in the milking trade.

1881 J. P. Sheldon Dairy Farming 58/1 A silver ‘syphon’ or ‘milking-tube’.

1999 Milwaukee (Wisconsin) Jrnl. Sentinel (Nexis) 30 Sept. 1 Farmers ogled gleaming steel stanchions, gaped at shiny silage cutters and caressed milking tubes.

1983 Man 18 450 It is stated that one who wishes to have many cattle carries the water (indicative present) in a milking vessel, as distinct from a water-storing vessel.

1559 in F. G. Emmison Essex Wills (1993) (modernized text) VIII. 136 To Alice my wife..my hallhouse with the new barn, the milkhouse, the shepen, the hayhouse, the milking yard [etc.].

1659 W. Greenwood Bouleuterion 381 T G. hath incroached with his ditch upon the Common of H. G. towards the milking yard of his Messuage.

1793 W. Marshall Minutes in Rural Econ. W. Eng. (1796) II. 355 Between these two straw yards is a milking yard.

1842 Sydney Morning Herald 1 Aug. 1/6 On the Cattle station is a good substantial Stock-yard, with Milking-yards, Stockman's Hut, &c.

1888 W. Senior Near & Far 281 The magpie fluted sweetly from the three gum-trees by the milking-yard.

1983 S. Heaney Sweeney Astray 79 Then Sweeney would sneak into the deserted corner of the milking yard and lap it up.

1910 J. Masefield Ballads & Poems 42 Sleepy men bear milking-yokes Slowly towards the cattle-byre.

1852 L. A. Meredith My Home in Tasmania II. 19 It is necessary to have a kind of pillory, called a ‘milking bail’, in which..their heads are held fast..making them quiet.

1890 W. H. S. Roberts Hist. Oamaru 54 A stockyard and milking-bail had also been erected.

1954 Nature 4 Sept. 416/1 He [sc. Jefferson] designed ‘a moveable air cowshed, to be set up in the middle of the field which is to be dunged, and soil our cattle in that’—an anticipation of the modern milking bail.

1987 L. Murray Daylight Moon 78 Milking bails, flannel shirts, fried breakfasts, These were our element.

1924 S. R. Roget Dict. Electr. Terms 154/1 Milking booster, a small motor generator giving the voltage required for charging single cells of an accumulator battery.

1910 Encycl. Brit. I. 129/1 To restore the cell, two methods can be adopted... It may be left in the circuit, and a cell in good order put in parallel with it. This acts as a ‘milking’ cell.

1656 in P. C. D. Brears Yorks. Probate Inventories 1542–1689 (1972) 114 In the kitchinge…Two flasketts, three milkeing gallowes three piggins, three litle kitts.

1938 S. R. Roget Dict. Electr. Terms (ed. 3) 229/1 Milking generator [1931 ed. 2: Milking motor generator], a small motor generator giving the voltage required for charging single cells of an accumulator battery. (Sometimes incorrectly called Milking booster.)

1547 in J. M. Bestall & D. V. Fowkes Chesterfield Wills & Inventories 1521–1603 (1977) 30 On chefyng dysche..too more kyttes and on lytyll mylkyngkytt.

1674 in P. C. D. Brears Yorks. Probate Inventories 1542–1689 (1972) 142 In the milke house..One Chirne a milkeing kitt a Syle.

1824 J. Mactaggart Sc. Gallovidian Encycl. 257 String awa my crommies, to the milking loan.

1844 H. Stephens Bk. of Farm III. 824 The shepherd or cattle-man taking it as a part of his duty to bring them to a certain spot of the field to be milked, and which is usually named the milking loan.

1946 Agric. Overseas Rep. I. 8 The milking parlour arrangement is only at the experimental stage.

1972 Country Life 2 Nov. (Suppl.) 3 The Farm buildings include 2 milking parlours, cubicles for 120, stock yards.

1991 Which? Jan. 9/2 While healthy cows and hygienic milking parlours can produce unpasteurised milk that is safe to drink, problems can occur.

1830 M. R. Mitford Our Village IV. 103 Her little brother following with the milking-stool.

1895 S. Crane Red Badge of Courage ii. 27 He had often cursed the brindle cow and her mates, and had sometimes flung milking stools.

1989 P. Rance French Cheese Bk. xv. 423 Milking stools and cheesecloths adorn the wall.

1604 Shetland Sheriff Ct. MS 165^v Annent the wrangous intromissioun with twentie..milking ky.

1784 J. Twamley Dairying Exemplified 97 The people..who buy Cows, always make a large bag in a Milking Cow their first object.

1892 G. Stewart Shetland Fireside Tales 244 Dey hid Fleckie an' Sholmie, an Essie, a' milkin' kye.

1977 Grimsby Evening Tel. 5 May 3/6 (advt.) Pedigree Anglo Nubiam [sic] milking goat for sale.

1991 Which? Jan. 9/2 When a milking cow is treated with antibiotics because she has an infection..residues of the drugs sometimes end up in the milk.

1995 Classic Critters: Rare Breeds Mag. Summer 34/3 Replacement ewes with a quarter milk sheep blood could translate into prolific, heavy milking mothers.

1820 J. Clare Let. 3 Oct. (1985) 101 Now from the pasture milking maidens come.

1847 Ld. Tennyson Princess v. 105 You did but come as goblins in the night,..Nor burnt the grange, nor buss'd the milking-maid.

1891 T. Hardy Tess of the D'Urbervilles II. xxii. 13 One or two of the milking-men.

a1897 T. E. Brown Coll. Poems (1900) i. 4 And milking Pei sits daily at the pail.

1997 Toronto Star 8 Aug. b2/3 ‘I'm a little Swedish milking girl,’ Dunst said in a sing-song voice, referring to her costume of triangle head scarf, suspenders and pert skirt.

1910 Encycl. Brit. V. 539/2 The non-pedigree milking Shorthorn of the north of England is an excellent cow.

1995 Jrnl. Dairy Sci. 78 1584 The annual increase in level of inbreeding was highest for Milking Shorthorns, but the rate of change of that increase was greatest for Holsteins.