d. 1536. Tyndall, Workes, p. 365. ‘And to ayd the kynge in hys
right must the commons be milked till they bleede agayne.’
1605. Jonson, Volpone, i. 1. This three year I have milked their
hopes.
1808. Jamieson, Dict. Scot. Lang., s.v. Milk.
3. (old racing).—To bet against a horse, which is one’s own property
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.