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skim milk

11 2.0
Milk with the cream removed so it has little fat
  • noun
  • /skɪm mɪlk/
  • US
translation icon : leche desnatada (España)
  • 4 liters of skim milk was $4.59; now $7.59.
  • cup of skim milk
  • cereal with skim milk
  • yogurt and skim milk

Do you still believe that skim milk is healthier than than full fat milk?

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Examples

  • Replace your morning glass of juice with a glass of skim milk.

    Blog text (31)
  • For breakfast, I like to pour some cereal and add cold skim milk on top.

  • You used the skim milk, right?

  • All I had was skim milk.

  • I'll have that and a glass of skim milk.

  • For children over 2 years of age, ACA recommends 1 percent or skim milk rather than whole milk.

    Blog text (16)
  • You'll be able to substitute skim milk for fruit juice within your breakfast.

    Blog text (10)
  • We have peanut butter, bananas, and skim milk.

    Fiction book (1990)
  • May's shopping list: the prunes and the All-Bran P242 cereal, a single grapefruit, a skinny one-quart carton of skim milk.

    Fiction book (1998)
  • The recipe calls for one cup of skim milk to make the sauce less rich.

Synonyms

skimmed milk
vsskim milk
  • UK
1 1.4

Milk with most cream removed so it has little fat

has identical meaning but uses the participle word form instead of the base form

Antonyms

11 1.0

Milk that still has its natural fat, about three percent

How Fat

whole milk
11 1.0
low-fat milk
3 1.0
skim milk
  • US
11 2.0

Surface Forms

skim milk singular
skim milks plural

Morphology

skim + milk

The meaning 'milk from which the cream has been removed' is directly derivable from combining 'skim' (having had the cream removed) with 'milk'. This simple adjective + noun compositional pattern is common cross-linguistically and would be immediately understandable to a B1 learner who knows both constituents.

Etymology

The noun skim milk comes from the kitchen action of removing the cream that floats on the top of fresh milk. Cooks would skim off the cream with a spoon, leaving milk with less fat, so today skim milk means milk with the cream taken away or 'lower fat'.