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

While the early-morning NFL Network telecasts delivered an audience that was just 20% the size of the big Sunday national windows on CBS and Fox, Roger Goodell spends roughly 80% of his time dreaming up ways to turn the overseas package into yet another cash cow for the league and its 32 owners. —Anthony Crupi, Sportico.com, 5 Sep. 2025

The company reported a slight uptick in overall revenue for the second quarter, but saw a 6% decline in its cash cow TV media segment, which includes broadcast operations like CBS and cable networks, including Showtime and Nickelodeon. —Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez, Fortune, 5 Sep. 2025

And in Google’s case, its cash cow — online search advertising — is already in jeopardy, and ironically, because of Google itself. —Reed Albergotti, semafor.com, 3 Sep. 2025

Impossible movies are enormous perennial cash cows in their library revenue generation. —Anthony D'alessandro, Deadline, 1 Sep. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1972, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for cash cow

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