cash cow

noun

1

: a consistently profitable business, property, or product whose profits are used to finance a company's investments in other areas

2

: one regarded or exploited as a reliable source of money

a singer deemed a cash cow for the record label

Examples of cash cow in a Sentence

The football team was a cash cow for the university.

The movie studio saw the actress as a cash cow.

Recent Examples on the Web

The tech companies without Google’s cash cows will be left in an even weaker spot, which explains why Meta is hustling to launch its own cloud business. — Rohan Goswami, semafor.com, 23 July 2026

Club name Eli Lilly is staying busy on M & A, scooping up companies working on a variety of conditions and diseases away from its current cash cow of obesity. — Jim Cramer, CNBC, 16 July 2026

The ships are part of Disney’s Experiences division, which also includes its theme parks and is the company’s biggest cash cow. — Christian Sylt, Fortune, 16 July 2026

There seems to be no end in sight for the Yellowstone cash cow, and the success of Marshals and Dutton Ranch certainly leaves the door open for more modern-day Yellowstone spinoffs. — Brianna Zigler, Entertainment Weekly, 7 July 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1972, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for cash cow

• allow
• avow
• chiao
• endow
• eyebrow
• highbrow
• lanao
• meow
• powwow
• somehow
• anyhow
• carabao