ˈskim-milk
[f. skim v. + milk n.]
1. Milk with the cream skimmed off or otherwise removed. Also in fig. context.
| 1596 Shakes. 1 Hen. IV, ii. iii. 36 (Qq.), I could deuide my selfe, and go to buffets, for mouing such a dish of skim milke [1623 folio skim'd Milk] with so honorable an action. a 1712 W. King Misc. Poems, The Old Cheese, This is Skim-milk, and therefore it shall go. 1799 A. Young Agric. Linc. 297 He..gives first new, then skim milk. 1808 Curwen Econ. Feeding Stock 63 The skim-milk was included in the butter account. 1851 Mayhew Lond. Lab. I. 382/1 He lived principally upon ‘parritch’ and skim milk. 1897 Allbutt's Syst. Med. III. 132 If fat be removed from the milk as in ‘skim’ milk, rickets follows. |
| fig. 1778 The Love Feast 11 Craft's blue skim-Milk is best for Tools to lap. 1872 Punch 4 May 180/2 The genuine outpouring of the milk and cream, and none of the skim-milk of human kindness. 1898 Westm. Gaz. 14 Nov. 7/1 The idea prevailed that the cream had been extracted from the..revelations, leaving little but skim milk behind. |
2. attrib., as
skim-milk cheese, etc.
| 1805 R. W. Dickson Pract. Agric. II. 1012 In making skim-milk-cheeses the milk is set in the leads or pans as usual. 1836 Haliburton Clockm. (1862) 220 It's no skim⁓milk story, I do assure you. 1837 Penny Cycl. VII. 15/2 On the whole it is a better cheese than our Suffolk skim⁓milk cheese. 1876 Clinical Soc. Trans. IX. 38 On the adoption of the skim-milk treatment. |