Cream is the rich, fatty part of milk that rises to the top when milk sits undisturbed. Before milk is processed and homogenized in modern dairies, the cream naturally separates and floats above the thinner milk below. People skim off this cream to use in cooking, baking, or to make butter and ice cream. Heavy cream, whipping cream, and half-and-half are all products made from this fatty layer, each containing different amounts of milk fat.

When you pour cream into coffee or hot chocolate, you're adding richness and smoothness. Whipped cream, which you might put on pie or hot cocoa, is just cream that's been beaten until it becomes light and fluffy, full of tiny air bubbles.

The word also means the very best of something. The cream of the crop refers to the finest examples or the top performers in a group. If your teacher says you're part of the cream of the class, she means you're among the best students. This meaning comes from the idea that cream is the richest, best part of the milk.

As a verb, to cream something means to beat it until smooth and creamy, like creaming butter and sugar together when making cookies. In sports slang, if one team creams another, they defeat them by a huge margin.