Definition of "lactescent" [lac•tes•cent]

• Becoming milky. (adjective)
• Milky. (adjective)
• Biology Secreting or yielding a milky juice, as certain plants and insects. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "a similar pleasure may be occasioned to the parent by seeing and touching the egg or fetus after its birth; and in lactescent animals an additional pleasure is produced, by the new secretion of milk, as well as by its emission into the sucking lips of the infant."
• "The recurrence, moreover, of pregnancy in the lactescent female may render the milk of a bad quality, and will invariably lessen its quantity."
• "That mental inquietude will impede digestion is a fact familiar to almost every one; but, I believe, it is not so generally known, that it will with no less certainty retard and alter the nature of the secretion furnished by the breasts of the lactescent female."