milk [OE] The ancient root of milk may have meant ‘to rub’, and so would refer to hand-milking animals by pulling on their teats. It is connected with the Latin word mulgere ‘to milk’, the source also of *emulsion. The phrase the milk of human kindness comes from Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Lady Macbeth expresses her suspicion that her husband might not use violence to seize the Scottish throne: ‘Yet I do fear thy nature; it is too full o’ the milk of human kindness / To catch the nearest way.’ In the Book of Exodus in the Bible the Promised Land of Israel is described as ‘a land flowing with milk and honey’ giving us a term for prosperity and abundance.