udder
Americannoun
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
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.
See Examples For:
These receptors were found throughout the udder tissue of cattle but were nearly absent in airway tissue.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 23, 2026
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
He didn’t expect to find himself under an udder on Tuesday.
From Seattle Times ● May 21, 2024
“Na, na, rabbit no sveem dis river. Ees peeg, ees deep, go queek. But ees pridge, den udder side plenty place for hide. Ees close to varren, like you say.”
From "Watership Down: A Novel" by Richard Adams
Rather than primarily infecting the lungs, H5N1 caused severe infections in the udders while leaving the respiratory system largely unaffected.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 23, 2026
In other cases, he said the udders were so scarred by the disease that the cows were unable to produce milk at levels prior to infection.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 28, 2025
A livestock veterinarian at the University of Wisconsin, Poulsen had seen sick cows before, with their noses dripping and udders slack.
From Salon ● Dec. 24, 2024
Microscopic analysis of tissue from sick cows showed the virus infects cells in the alveoli, the millions of tiny milk-producing sacs in udders.
From Science Magazine ● Apr. 30, 2024
By the time he turned a corner and found the three apprentice boys crowded around the poor creature’s udders and snickering as they sprayed each other with milk, he was in a foul mood.
From "Beasts of Prey" by Ayana Gray
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.
