a. [f. L. lactifer (see prec.) + -OUS.]
1. Of animals and their organs: Producing, secreting or conveying milk.
1691. Ray, Creation, I. (1692), 144. He makes the Breasts to be … Glandules … made up of an infinite number of little Knots or Kernels, each whereof hath its excretory Vessel or lactiferous Duct.
1794–6. E. Darwin, Zoon., I. 171. The females of lactiferous animals have another natural inlet of pleasure or pain from the suckling of their offspring.
1802. Bingley, Anim. Biog. (1813), I. 15. The class of animals denominated … Mammalia, comprehends all those which nourish their offspring by means of lactiferous glands or teats.
1822–34. Good’s Study Med. (ed. 4), IV. 193. Perfect milk in every separate lactiferous tube.
2. Of plants and their organs: Conveying or yielding a milky fluid.
1673–4. Grew, Anat. Plants, III. II. iv. § 10 (1682), 133. The Lactiferous and Resiniferous Vessels of Plants.
1675. Phil. Trans., X. 487. He finds sap vessels to be … Lymphæducts and Lactiferous.
1753. in Chambers, Cycl. Supp.
1801. Trans. Soc. Arts, XIX. 198. Lettuces running to seed … are known to be more particularly lactiferous.
1854. J. Hogg, Microsc., II. iv. 409. Plants are likewise furnished with lactiferous ducts or tissue.
Hence Lactiferousness, the quality of yielding milk in abundance.
1854. Dublin Univ. Mag., I. XLIII. March, 324, note. Two cows were brought hither, of remarkable lactiferousness and equally fruitful.
1879. Punch, 2 Nov., 195/2. The natural lactiferousness of the Alderney.
