Cream v.

[f. CREAM sb.²]

  1.  intr. Of milk: To form cream.

1596.  [see CREAMING vbl. sb. b].

1674.  trans. Scheffer’s Lapland, xxviii. 131. The Dairy-Maids first let the milk stand to cream.

1741.  Compl. Fam. Piece, I. ii. 119. Strain your Milk into a Pot … put it in your Pans … when ’tis creamed, skim it exceeding clean from the Milk.

1881.  J. P. Sheldon, Dairy Farming, 295. The salient idea in the system is that milk is set in ice-water to cream.

  b.  trans. To cause or allow (milk) to form cream.

1883.  Bristol Times, 26 May, Suppl. 4/1. It is better to cream the milk at the farm in small vessels.

1886.  All Y. Round, 14 Aug., 34. They churn the milk instead of creaming it first.

  2.  intr. Of other liquids: To form a scum or frothy layer on the surface; to mantle, foam, froth.

c. 1440.  Promp. Parv., 101. Cremyn, or remyn, as lycour, spumat.

1596.  Shaks., Merch. V., I. i. 89. A sort of men, whose visages Do creame and mantle like a standing pond.

1610.  W. Folkingham, Art of Survey, I. vi. 13. Some Fountaines creame with a liquid Bitumen.

1769.  Mrs. Raffald, Eng. Housekpr. (1778), 331. If it … cream like bottled ale.

1872.  Black, Adv. Phaeton, II. xx. 113. The wine that was frothing and creaming in her glass.

  fig.  1840.  Lady C. Bury, Hist. Flirt, xxiv. My temper chafed and creamed under hourly unkindness.

  b.  with advb. extension, as down, up.

1844.  Talfourd, Vac. Rambles, I. vii. (1851), 94. The stream … was seen creaming down a dark precipice.

1881.  Daily Tel., 24 Feb., 8/2. The tide creaming past us.

  3.  To rise to the top like cream. nonce-use.

1887.  N. & Q., 7th Ser. IV. 57/2. That a man must have creamed to the top by prosperity and success.

  4.  trans. To skim the cream from the surface of (milk).

1727–31.  Bailey, vol. II. Cream, to skim off cream.

1852.  Mrs. Carlyle, Lett., II. 205. The spoon, which had unluckily been left, after creaming the milk for my tea.

  5.  To separate as cream; fig. to take the cream of, take the best or choicest part of; to gather as the cream. Const. off.

1615.  Crooke, Body of Man, 410. Nourished … by a most pure and bright substance out of the separation of the bloud; as if he should say, it is creamed as it were off from the bloud.

1677.  Cleveland’s Poems, Ded. A. iv. Yet how many such Authors must be creamed … to make up his Fuscara?

1704.  Swift, T. Tub, ix. Such a man, truly wise, creams off nature leaving the sour and the dregs, for philosophy and reason to lap up.

1836.  Tait’s Mag., III. 490. The picturesque table of matters which my aunt creamed for us.

1884.  Sat. Rev., 15 Nov., 621/2. It has been found necessary to cream the battalions now in England to make up the Nile expedition.

  6.  To add cream to a cup of tea, coffee, etc.

1834.  Mar. Edgeworth, Helen, xxxvi. He sugared, and creamed, and drank, and thought, and spoke not.

1850.  Chamb. Jrnl., XIV. 194. [She] creams and sugars as if her hands dallied over a labour of love.

Mod.  To cream tea.

  Cream, var. of CRAME, Sc., a stall, etc.

  Cream, to crumble: see CRIM v.