A milkmaid is historically a woman, usually young, who milked cows and supplied milk.

In previous centuries, before vaccination became common, milkmaids were sometimes cited as the example of someone with good skin. This was in part due to the fact that their exposure to cowpox gave them immunity to smallpox, so they did not have the "pockmarked" complexion common to smallpox survivors.

In the sexual fetishism or paraphilia of milk fetishism, the name is also given to women who supply milk for sexual purposes.

Cultural References

One of the fables of Aesop is called “The Milkmaid and Her Pail.” Elizabeth I is quoted as saying to one of her attendants, “That milkmaid’s lot is better than mine, and her life merrier,” in 1554, during her imprisonment as princess, in which she heard a milkmaid singing as she worked. There is a famous painting by Jan Vermeer entitled “The Milkmaid” (ca. 1658). Aelbert Cuyp, another Dutch artist, created the drawing known as “A Milkmaid” (ca. 1640 – 1650).