What does "colostrum" mean?

A form of milk produced by the mammary glands in late pregnancy and the few days after giving birth.

What is a synonym for "colostrum"?

Common synonyms include: beastings, beest, beestings, beestings, beistings, beistyn.

Pronounced //kəˈlɒstɹəm//.

//kəˈlɒstɹəm// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Noun

1
A form of milk produced by the mammary glands in late pregnancy and the few days after giving birth. uncountable, usually
"The researchers isolated the antibodies from the cow's colostrum, the first milk produced after birth, which has very high antibody concentrations. They gave these antibodies, extracted from the colostrum, to 10 volunteers and gave another 10 volunteers extracts from colostrum of cows that were not immunized against the traveler's diarrhea bacteria."
2
milky fluid secreted for the first day or two after parturition wordnet
3
A mixture of turpentine and egg yolk, formerly used as an emulsion. uncountable, usually

"If we gave priority to the veal and take very little colostrum, it passes. The man forgets himself, alas!"

Borrowed from Latin colostrum, of uncertain origin.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.