"milk-and-water" meaning in English

See milk-and-water in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Adjective

Forms: more milk-and-water [comparative], most milk-and-water [superlative]
Head templates: {{en-adj}} milk-and-water (comparative more milk-and-water, superlative most milk-and-water)
  1. Insipid, wishy-washy, weak. Derived forms: milk-and-wateriness, milk-and-watery
    Sense id: en-milk-and-water-en-adj-gpwc-ywq Categories (other): English coordinated pairs, English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries Disambiguation of English coordinated pairs: 56 33 11 Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 91 6 3 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 95 5 0 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 97 3 0

Noun

Head templates: {{en-noun|-}} milk-and-water (uncountable)
  1. Something insipid or mawkish. Tags: uncountable
    Sense id: en-milk-and-water-en-noun-~KJbmVVY
  2. (obsolete) A light bluish color. Tags: obsolete, uncountable
    Sense id: en-milk-and-water-en-noun-NZOFo6uq
{
  "head_templates": [
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      "args": {
        "1": "-"
      },
      "expansion": "milk-and-water (uncountable)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "glosses": [
        "Something insipid or mawkish."
      ],
      "id": "en-milk-and-water-en-noun-~KJbmVVY",
      "links": [
        [
          "insipid",
          "insipid"
        ],
        [
          "mawkish",
          "mawkish"
        ]
      ],
      "tags": [
        "uncountable"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [],
      "glosses": [
        "A light bluish color."
      ],
      "id": "en-milk-and-water-en-noun-NZOFo6uq",
      "links": [
        [
          "color",
          "color"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(obsolete) A light bluish color."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "obsolete",
        "uncountable"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "milk-and-water"
}

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "more milk-and-water",
      "tags": [
        "comparative"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "most milk-and-water",
      "tags": [
        "superlative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
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      "expansion": "milk-and-water (comparative more milk-and-water, superlative most milk-and-water)",
      "name": "en-adj"
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "56 33 11",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English coordinated pairs",
          "parents": [
            "Coordinated pairs",
            "Terms by etymology"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "91 6 3",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "95 5 0",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "97 3 0",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "derived": [
        {
          "word": "milk-and-wateriness"
        },
        {
          "word": "milk-and-watery"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              48,
              62
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC:",
          "text": "[…] she was still, as heretofore, a namby-pamby milk-and-water affected creature […]",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              22,
              36
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1977, John Le Carré, The Honourable Schoolboy, Folio Society, published 2010, page 166:",
          "text": "He gave other equally milk-and-water examples and everyone grew sleepy, waiting for the last lap: ‘Our policy has been exactly the same each time.’",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Insipid, wishy-washy, weak."
      ],
      "id": "en-milk-and-water-en-adj-gpwc-ywq",
      "links": [
        [
          "Insipid",
          "insipid"
        ],
        [
          "wishy-washy",
          "wishy-washy"
        ],
        [
          "weak",
          "weak"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "milk-and-water"
}
{
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    "English coordinated pairs",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English nouns",
    "English uncountable nouns",
    "Pages with 1 entry",
    "Pages with entries"
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  "head_templates": [
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "glosses": [
        "Something insipid or mawkish."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "insipid",
          "insipid"
        ],
        [
          "mawkish",
          "mawkish"
        ]
      ],
      "tags": [
        "uncountable"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with obsolete senses"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A light bluish color."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "color",
          "color"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(obsolete) A light bluish color."
      ],
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        "obsolete",
        "uncountable"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "milk-and-water"
}

{
  "categories": [
    "English adjectives",
    "English coordinated pairs",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English nouns",
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    "Pages with 1 entry",
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  ],
  "derived": [
    {
      "word": "milk-and-wateriness"
    },
    {
      "word": "milk-and-watery"
    }
  ],
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    {
      "form": "more milk-and-water",
      "tags": [
        "comparative"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "most milk-and-water",
      "tags": [
        "superlative"
      ]
    }
  ],
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
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          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              48,
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          "ref": "1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC:",
          "text": "[…] she was still, as heretofore, a namby-pamby milk-and-water affected creature […]",
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        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
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              22,
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          ],
          "ref": "1977, John Le Carré, The Honourable Schoolboy, Folio Society, published 2010, page 166:",
          "text": "He gave other equally milk-and-water examples and everyone grew sleepy, waiting for the last lap: ‘Our policy has been exactly the same each time.’",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Insipid, wishy-washy, weak."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "Insipid",
          "insipid"
        ],
        [
          "wishy-washy",
          "wishy-washy"
        ],
        [
          "weak",
          "weak"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "milk-and-water"
}

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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-04-24 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-04-20 using wiktextract (813e02a and ea19a0a). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.