milkery

From milk +‎ -ery. Compare French laiterie and German Molkerei.

milkery (plural milkeries) (uncommon)

1. A place where animals are milked.

   Synonyms: dairy, dairy farm

   • 1862, “Health Track, No. 82. Milk—Its Uses.”, in W[illiam] W[hitty] Hall, editor, Hall’s Journal of Health, volume IX, New York, N.Y.: […] the Editor, […], and […] Trubner & Company, […], London:

     But a cow confined on ship-board, in the stable of a private citizen, or in the narrow stenchy stalls of the milkeries which supply cities, does not live a natural life, and can not by any possibility give natural, healthful milk; […]

   • 1879 October 4, Mrs. Henry Ward Beecher [i.e., Eunice White Beecher], “Milk and Butter”, in Harper’s Bazar […], volume XII, number 40, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 630, column 4:

     Now contrast this with the untidy manner in which many farmers allow their milkers to milk the cows—hair unbrushed, full of husks and straws, perhaps, just as they come from loading hay or threshing grain; […] When we think of the condition of the hands and clothes of those who “go to the milkery” without washing, or change of raiment, or brushing the hair, we can not wonder that poor milk and butter are so common, even if there was no other reason for it.

   • 1892, Lee Meriwether, Afloat and Ashore on the Mediterranean, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, page 60:

     There were eight cows in the milkery where we went—a room thirty-five feet deep by sixteen wide.

   • 1938 May 20, Radio Daily, volume 4, New York, N.Y.: Radio Daily Corp., →OCLC, page 8, column 1:

     Women’s clubs meet daily at the dairy and get an air plug as an inducement to gather at the milkery.

   • 1974, Suzy McKee Charnas, The Slave and the Free: Walk to the End of the World, Motherlines, New York, N.Y.: Tom Doherty Associates, published 1999, →ISBN, page 65:

     […] what more nutritious additive than the flesh of dead fems and of fem-cubs who did not survive the milkery?

   • 1984 July 17, Parliamentary Debates, volume 10, Harare: […] House of Assembly, →OCLC, page 407, column 2:

     Mr. Speaker, if you get sentenced to one year imprisonment in this country, you get nothing at the end of 12 months though you have probably contributed in the growing of vegetables, the brining up of chickens, in the piggeries, in the milkery, in the carpentry shop, in the brick-making, et cetera.

   • 1998 December 22, zagarins@mail.stcc.mass.edu [Juris Zagarins, translating Valdis Artavs], “merry xmas”, in soc.culture.baltics‎^[1] (Usenet), archived from the original on 26 January 2026:

     The town of Bethlehem back then / Had little commercial development. / Agriculture was the going thing: / There in the new milkery building / The place to go was the Shepherds' club. / It gave out awards and passed out grub: / Whoever raised a healthy goat / Took home a prize, good cause to gloat. / But if you raised a breeding bull, / You got an authentic Solomon's scroll.

   • 2010, Susan Meisel, Nathalie Sann, “The Hudson Valley”, in Fresh from the Farm: Great Local Foods from New York State […], New York, N.Y.: Rizzoli, →ISBN, page 246, column 1:

     Every barn is a new discovery. One houses the creamery. […] In another barn is the milkery and yet in another right next to it are the newly born lambs.

   • 2013, Martin W. Bowman, A Bridge Too Far?, Pen & Sword Aviation, →ISBN:

     The milkery, bakery, horse stables and pig sties were all burned out.

2. A place where milk is stored and it or dairy products are processed or sold.

   Synonyms: dairy, milkhouse

   • 1899 April 28, “Milk Production on the Continent”, in Natal Department of Agriculture and Mines, The Agricultural Journal and Mining Record, volume II, number 3, Pietermaritzburg, Natal: William Watson, “Times of Natal” office, published 1900, →OCLC, page 85, column 2:

     The milk is cooled to a temperature of 5 degs. C. as soon as it is drawn, and must be kept cool until it is delivered at the milkery in Copenhagen, no milk being accepted if its temperature is over 10 degs.

   • 1900, G[eorge] W[arrington] Steevens, “A Country Gentleman”, in Vernon Blackburn, editor, Glimpses of Three Nations, New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead and Company, →OCLC, pages 213–214:

     The proprietors of the neighbourhood have a milkery in the town four miles away; part is sold as milk—2d. a litre retail, 1¼d. wholesale—part is made into butter, and if there is skim-milk unsold it comes back for the pigs.

   • 1914, W[illiam] R[ichard] Titterton, “A Christmas Camp”, in Me as a Model, London: Frank & Cecil Palmer […], →OCLC, page 144:

     Thence to the milkery. A litre, hot and bubbling. “Bfff! You have right, monsieur, it is cold.” The bakery. A walking-stick of bread. “But yes, monsieur, it is cold!” The village pump. A sparkling bottleful. “But yes——” The rest was inarticulate sobbing.

   • 1940, Scribner’s Commentator, volume VIII, number 2, New York, N.Y.: P. & S. Publishing, →OCLC, page 46, column 1:

     […] would make myself remember marketing in Italy, where you must buy veal and beef at one butcher-shop, lamb and poultry at another, pork at the delicatessen shop, and fish at the fish market; where you find milk and butter only at the “milkery”, staples at a “drugstore”, bread at a breadstore, fruit and vegetables at the open market; […]

   • [1950, Carlos Fallon, A Variety of Fallon, Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown and Company, →OCLC, page 37:

     Elvira was sent out daily to buy meat, eggs, and milk from the carnicería and the lechería—literally, the meatery and the milkery.]

   • 1999 June 6, Dutchie, “I Almost Got to Shoot Somebody Tonight”, in alt.tasteless‎^[2] (Usenet), archived from the original on 26 January 2026:

     The milkery was usually just a sideline thing along with some porkers and chickens. They used to sell to the general public from a little shed.