- perty but is not meant to
win; to keep him a favourite, at short odds, for a race in which he has no chance whatever, or in which he will not be run.
1862. Times, 2 Jan., p. 8, col. 6. If men of fortune and honour will permit their pastime to be sullied by such tricks as milking—by keeping a horse a favorite at short odds for a race in which he has no chance whatever, only to lay against him—etc.
1863. Fraser's Mag., Dec. 'The English Turf.' Milking then is an expressive term for getting as much as possible out of a horse.
1869. W. Bradwood, The O.V.H. xx. They'll accuse you—or rather me, for he's entered in my name and colours—of milking right and left. . . . It's far simpler to let him run for the public money, and save a jaw and a long explanation.
1870. Field, 14 May, 'The Present Condition of the Turf.' We are not in the habit of producing examples of the proceedings at our race meetings, which are in vulgar language described as milking and roping, because we believe them to be so common that it would be unjust to select any one in particular for animadversion.
1871. Fun, 4 Nov. Milking we fear is inseparably connected with the turf; we noted that sporting journals of the highest class picked 'the cream' of the autumn handicaps.
1888. Referee, 11 Oct. The assumption that no horse other than Paradox has ever been milked in open market, and many thousands of pounds made out of the transaction, is a trifle too utopian for present emergencies.
4. (general).—To get possession by artifice: as, to milk a telegram = to get access to it before the addressee. Cf. Milker, sense 1.
1860. Prescott, Electrical Invent., p. 108. The rapidity and simplicity of the means by which a wire could be milked without being cut, or put out of circuit struck the whole of the party.
1869. Times, 14 August [quoted in Brewer's Phrase & Fable, s.v. 'Telegram']. They receive their telegrams in cipher to avoid the risk of their being milked by rival journals.
1871. Milk Journal. Milking the wires is telegraphic slang for tapping the wires. . . . In India wires have been milked for fraudulent commercial purposes.
1884. Saturday Review, 10 May, p. 607. The Central News telegram, if it was milked at all, was milked through the medium of Sir C. Wilson's, etc.
5. (old).—To exhaust; to drain.
1642. Symmons, Vindication, 175. Tho' perhaps they have been pilled and milk'd a few years longer by these new-states-men it will be confessed that the old government [that of the king] was far the better and more easie.
To give down milk, verb. phr. (old).—To pay.
1655. R. Lestrange, The Reign of King Charles, p. 187. The City was sullen, would not give down their milk, and pleaded want of trade and poverty.
To milk the pigeon, verb. phr. (common).—To attempt impossibilities: cf. Pigeon's milk.
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v.
To milk the street, verb. phr. (American).—To hold stock so well in hand as to make it fluctuate as you will.
1870. Medbery, Men and Mysteries of Wall St., 336. There is a distinction between the cliques and brokers. . . . Great operators rob the brokers by destroying their customers. To use the slang of the financial quarter, they milk the street.
1876. New York Tribune [Bartlett]. The majority of stocks are still blocked, and the market, so far as possible, worked entirely upon the milking process.
To milk over the fence, verb. phr. (common).—See quot.
1871. Milk Journal, Sept. Stealing milk from neighbours' cows is . . . known as milking over the fence.
