Definition

Noun: A cash cow is a business, product, or service that generates a steady, significant, and reliable stream of income or profit with minimal ongoing investment or effort. It is often a mature, well-established part of a larger portfolio that provides the funds needed for other ventures or operations.

Usage

The term is used to describe an asset that consistently produces profits far exceeding the capital required to maintain it. It is a metaphorical term comparing the reliable financial returns to a cow that is milked regularly.

Examples

• The company's classic soft drink brand remains its primary cash cow, funding research into new products.
• That textbook became a cash cow for the publisher, requiring few updates but selling year after year.
• The film studio uses its franchise cash cow to finance riskier, independent projects.

Advanced Usage

• "to be a cash cow for (someone/something)": To be the source of reliable funds for a person or organization.
  • The mobile game has become a cash cow for the small development studio.
• "to milk a cash cow": To exploit a reliable source of income, sometimes with the implication of doing so without sufficient reinvestment, potentially harming its long-term viability.
  • Analysts warn that the company is milking its cash cow and not investing enough in innovation.

Variants and Related Words

• Cash flow (n): The net amount of cash being transferred into and out of a business.
• Profit center (n): A part of a business that is expected to generate a profit, similar to but less idiomatic than "cash cow."

Synonyms

• Money-spinner (n, chiefly British): Something that yields a large profit.
• Golden goose (n): A source of wealth or profit (often used in the idiom "to kill the golden goose," meaning to destroy a reliable source of income through greed or shortsightedness).

Idioms

• "To kill the cash cow": To make decisions that destroy a reliable and profitable asset. This is an adaptation of the more common idiom "to kill the golden goose."
  • By raising prices too sharply, they risk killing the cash cow that supports the entire company.

Noun

1. a project that generates a continuous flow of money