milking it
Exploiting the situation
Milking it means prolonging or exaggerating something to extract maximum benefit, sympathy, or attention—like squeezing every last drop from an udder.
Someone with a minor injury who milks it dramatizes their suffering for extra care.
A performer milking applause stretches out their bow.
The phrase usually carries a note of skepticism: He's totally milking it.
- draggingPulling with effort
- stretchingExtending muscles or material
- exploitingUsing selfishly for benefit
- overplayingExcessive dramatic emphasis
- laying it on thickExaggerating to excess
exaggerating · squeezing · prolonging · going on and on · cashing in · cash cow · wringing · theatrical · dramatic · attention · sympathy · crocodile tears · pity · udder · cow · dairy · exhausting · bleeding dry
- theatricstheatrics, dramatics, melodrama, histrionics, theatricality
- exaggerationhyperbole, overstatement, exaggeration, magnification, amplification
milking itsucking it up
Tolerating difficulty silently
soldiering on · grinning and bearing it · suffering in silence · taking it in stride
milk, milking, milked, milks, milky, milkiness, milkman, milkmaid