milkmaid:
(plural: ‘milkmaids‘; male: ‘milkman’; pronunciation: ‘milk…maid’ — for the right pronunciation, please click here)
a girl or woman who milks a cow or other female animal; a milker,
a girl or woman who works on a dairy farm, a place where animals, mostly cows, are kept for their milk,
a milkmaid at work
There is a belief on the dairy farms that a milkmaid who’s got cowpox, a skin disease, never gets smallpox, a very serious infectious disease, because the cowpox infection earlier makes the milkmaid immune to smallpox virus.
Though the name ‘milkmaid’ has become old-fashioned, there are still some female dairy farmers who like to be called ‘milkmaids’ just to keep the tradition alive.
With the advent of different milking machines, the need for milkmaids in the advanced countries has become less and less; nevertheless, in the less advanced countries, milking is still done by hand by milkmaids and milkmen.
Milkmaid is also used for a kind of hairstyle called ‘milkmaid braid’. For an article, with several video clips, that shows us how milkmaid braids are done, please click here.
