udder
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of udder
before 1000; Middle English uddre, Old English ūder; cognate with German Euter, Latin ūber, Greek oûthar, Sanskrit ū́dhar
Explanation
A cow's udder is the part of its body that produces milk. When you milk a cow, you empty its udder by squeezing the milk into a bucket. Moo! To milk any four-legged ruminant, you need to carefully squeeze and pull each teat after cleaning the udder. Large dairy farmers use machines to do this, while some smaller ones do it by hand. Female cattle, goats, deer, and sheep all produce milk and have udders, organs in their bodies that contain mammary glands.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
In an unassuming building in Stratford, east London, British start-up Better Dairy is making cheese that has never seen an udder, which it argues tastes like the real thing.
From BBC • Jul. 12, 2025
He said he monitors each cow at his farms with a device that sits in a cow’s udder and sends real-time information about the animal’s body temperature, milk acidity, etc.
From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 29, 2024
If the virus spreads primarily via milking equipment, vaccines may need to trigger immunity in the udder.
From Science Magazine • May 20, 2024
He bent down underneath one of the docile creatures and poked at a lesion on its udder.
From Salon • Nov. 14, 2021
Paddy says, Bejasus, ’tis milkin’ time, and he’s over the wall, stretched on his back under a cow with her big udder hanging into his face.
From "Angela's Ashes: A Memoir" by Frank McCourt
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
