milk, v. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

milk v.

1. in senses of taking illegally.

(a) to defraud, to extract money from.

c.1526		Frith Disputacion Purgatorye n.p.: To Rdr. Avj, This theyr painful purgatorye [...] hath of longe time but deceaued the people and mylked them from theyr monye [OED].
1723		C. Walker Authentick Memoirs of Sally Salisbury 109: He had been forc’d to promise to bring her some Rich Cull, whom she might Milk to good Advantage.
1754		Scoundrel’s Dict. 25: There if Lour we want I’ll milk / a gage or nip from thee a bung.
1801		G. Hangar Life, Adventures and Opinions II 60: Your flash-man, is following his occupation, scampering on his prancer upon the high tober or at some country fair mulking [sic.] the flatts of the quid.
1861		R.F. Burton City of the Saints 255: ‘Milking the Gentiles,’ coining ‘Bogus-Money, whistling and whittling’.
1869		Sporting Gaz. (London) 18 Dec. 4/2: The Duke of Beaufort [...] have heard the term milking. Mr Serjeant ballantine: Does it imply swindling?—Witness: Certainly [...] Milking [is] laying against your own horse, and then scratching him, and that is what I consider to be swindling.
1870		W.W. Fowler Ten Years In Wall Street 32: The ring, to use a Wall Street phrase in this way, ‘milk the street,’ taking money out of the bears, who sell at a low price; and out of the bulls, who buy at a high price.
1873		Sl. Dict. 225: Milking, is keeping a horse a favourite, at short odds, for a race in which he has no chance whatever, or in which he will not be allowed to try, for the purpose of laying against him.
1885		F. Gilbert ‘I’m the Fellow that Tells the Truth’ 🎵 Our statesmen all ‘milk’ us, our purse is the ‘Cow’ .
1895		Truth (Sydney) 14 Apr. 3/6: Some men join the Shearer’s Union for the purpose of ‘milking’ the men of their hard-earned cheques after the shearing is over.
1903		Sun. Times (Perth) 8 Mar. 1/1: The now handsome-dividend-paying concern has been vigorously milked by the manager.
1928		M.C. Sharpe Chicago May: Her Story in Hamilton (1952) 131: Sometimes [the blackmailer] exposes the dupe after he has been milked dry.
1936		R. Chandler ‘Goldfish’ Red Wind (1946) 169: Peeler played with a girl and she milked him.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 84: Beefy cattlemen who were sure to be milked.
1952		Lait & Mortimer USA Confidential 19: They milk treasuries of companies in which they infiltrate.
1969		S. Greenlee Spook who Sat by the Door (1972) 31: This was the easiest trick she had in a week. She wondered how much she could milk him for.
1978		L. Kramer Faggots 81: Häagen Dazs up to a buck a cone at the pot-bellied gouger’s. Milk the faggots dry.
1983		A-Team Storybook 33: We’re all here to milk the suckers.
1993		G. Disher Deathdeal [ebook] ‘[A] ring of scam artists is in town. They milked a couple of million off some places in Reno’.
1997		C. Hiaasen Lucky You 175: I’ve got to milk ’em for all they’re worth.
2000		Guardian Editor 7 Jan. 13: What’s done for the wise guys is the decline of the blue-collar unions, whose pension funds they used to milk.

(b) to intercept telegrams addressed to others.

1869		Times 14 Aug. in Brewer Phrase and Fable (1894) II 1212/1: ‘Telegram.’ They receive their telegrams in cipher to avoid the risk of their being milked by rival journals .
1871		Milk Journal n.p.: Milking the wires is telegraphic slang for tapping the wires [F&H].
1884		Sat. Rev. (London) 10 May 607: The Central News telegram, if it was milked at all, was milked throught the medium of Sir C.Wilson’s, etc [F&H].

1896

Mirror of Life 11 Apr. 3/4: Fitz won’t ‘milk’ any better than a dry cow.

(d) (Aus.) to siphon petrol from a car (whether legally or not).

1939		K. Tennant Foveaux 212: [He] supported both a motor-car and bicycle due to his economical use of the company’s petrol. In one of the shops on his run he kept a big oil drum and when occasion offered he would refill this without expense by the simple expedient of crawling under his ’bus and ‘milking’ her.
1982		J. Davis Dreamers 78: roy: Hope they don’t come round lookin’ for boondah for petrol to git ’ome. [...] peter: Don’t you know how to milk a bowser?

2. to masturbate oneself or someone else; to cause to ejaculate [note in D’Urfey, Pills to Purge Melancholy (1719): ‘But stupid Honesty; / May teach her how to Sleep all Night / And take a great deal more Delight, / To Milk the Cows than thee’; note milk n.].

1610		Jonson Alchemist III iii: For she must milk his epididimis. / Where is the doxy?
1707		N. Ward London Terraefilius II 20: That Airy Lass [was] brought from the Innocent Squeezing of Cows Dugs, to the Wicked Milking of Town Bulls.
1787		Harris’s List of Covent-Garden Ladies 53: [He] married her and put her in lodgings, where besides milking him, she sometimes employs her leisure hours in handling other teats, and is said to only a delicate hand at stroking, but great skill in the use of the churn, soon making love’s butter from nature’s cream.
1798		‘The Blue Vein’ in Hilaria 61: For the squire and curate, when heated with ale, / Doll Dairy had milk’d in her amorous pail.
1833		‘Milking The Bull’ in Lummy Chaunter 92: In short, I never was before / Pleas’d half so much, I vow, / So ever since I milk young Hodge, / Before I milk my cow.
1842		Wkly Rake (NY) 9 July n.p.: Another [lover] wanted to be a cow, that his dear might milk him.
1843		Satirist & Sporting Chron. (Sydney) 25 Mar. 1/2: The Lady in Elizabeth Street [...] is already sufficiently notorious in the milking of Goats and Stallions.
1883		‘Three Chums’ in Boudoir IV 130: All three spent quite another hour in f—g, groping, and kissing, till at last Charlie was milked as dry as a stick.
1898		‘Mary Suckit’ Yvonne 42: Deliver my bursting cockey; suck it, milk it!
1972		P. Kanto Lay-a-day 74: I was milking his cock, making the seminal fluid come out of it.
1973		R. Alley Last Tango in Paris (1980) 133: Paul climaxed, and Jeanne withdrew her hand in disgust. She had milked him, and the last of his strength drained away.
1989		Murray & Murrell Lang. Sadomasochism 95: milking n. Repeated masturbation of a male masochist.
2003		Milkers.com 🌐 Just Awesome, Jaw-Dropping, Dick-Milking JO Fun!

3. (Aus.) to drug or otherwise ensure that a horse will lose a race.

1867		Brisbane Courier 10 July 3/5: Such terms as ‘milking,’ ‘roping,’ ‘dead ’uns,’ &c., are highly suggestive, and it is quite probable each may be applicable to one or more horses amongst the sixty-five nominated for the Cup.
1869		Eve. Jrnl (Adelaide, SA) 1 Oct. 3/3: [T]he only safe horse in any race is a ‘dead’ un’ or one that has been ‘milked,’ or ‘made safe’.

4. to add milk to tea or coffee.

2003

Princeton University WordNet 1.7.1 🌐 The verb ‘milk’ has 3 senses in WordNet. 1. milk -- (take milk from female mammals; ‘Cows need to be milked every morning’). 2. milk -- (exploit as much as possible; ‘I am milking this for all it’s worth’). 3. milk -- (add milk to; ‘milk the tea’).

5. to laze around, to be idle.

1894		A. Morrison Tales of Mean Streets (1983) 38: Milkin’ about at ’ome an’ ’idin’ money.
1995		Eble Campus Sl. Apr. 7: milk around – act in a carefree and lazy manner: ‘I should have been getting some work done, but I’ve just been milking around all afternoon’.

In phrases

milk a duck (v.)

(US) to attempt the impossible.

2002

J.M. Pickard K’ang Ch. 12 on digitalZendo 🌐 Gutha! It would be easier to milk a duck!

milk the goat (v.)

(Aus.) for a bookmaker to defraud a bettor.

1904

Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 11 May 1/2: I present him with a bit of good advice, and it is: whenever he ‘milks the goat,’ never to strip her quite ‘dry’.

milk the lizard (v.)

see under lizard n.

milk the pigeon (v.)

to attempt an impossible task.

1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1834		‘Jack Downing’ Andrew Jackson 75: But the men preferr’d goin home, which never fail'd tu raise his dander, especially when he found he had been milkin the pigeon with 'em.