| / English Dictionary |
MOTHER-IN-LAW
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
Irregular inflected form: mothers-in-law
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
The mother of your spouse
Classified under:
Hypernyms ("mother-in-law" is a kind of...):
in-law; relative-in-law (a relative by marriage)
female parent; mother (a woman who has given birth to a child (also used as a term of address to your mother))
Instance hyponyms:
Naomi; Noemi (the mother-in-law of Ruth whose story is told in the Book of Ruth in the Old Testament)
Context examples:
But when satisfied on all these points, and their acquaintance proportionably advanced, he contrived to find an opportunity, while their two fathers were engaged with each other, of introducing his mother-in-law, and speaking of her with so much handsome praise, so much warm admiration, so much gratitude for the happiness she secured to his father, and her very kind reception of himself, as was an additional proof of his knowing how to please—and of his certainly thinking it worth while to try to please her.
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
Mr. and Mrs. Palmer were of the party; from the former, whom they had not seen before since their arrival in town, as he was careful to avoid the appearance of any attention to his mother-in-law, and therefore never came near her, they received no mark of recognition on their entrance.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
His son was sent for as soon as his danger was known, and to him Mr. Dashwood recommended, with all the strength and urgency which illness could command, the interest of his mother-in-law and sisters.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
With the assistance of his mother-in-law, Sir John was not long in discovering that the name of Ferrars began with an F. and this prepared a future mine of raillery against the devoted Elinor, which nothing but the newness of their acquaintance with Edward could have prevented from being immediately sprung.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
Do but consider, my dear Mr. Dashwood, how excessively comfortable your mother-in-law and her daughters may live on the interest of seven thousand pounds, besides the thousand pounds belonging to each of the girls, which brings them in fifty pounds a year a-piece, and, of course, they will pay their mother for their board out of it.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
There was nothing in any of the party which could recommend them as companions to the Dashwoods; but the cold insipidity of Lady Middleton was so particularly repulsive, that in comparison of it the gravity of Colonel Brandon, and even the boisterous mirth of Sir John and his mother-in-law was interesting.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
She took the first opportunity of affronting her mother-in-law on the occasion, talking to her so expressively of her brother's great expectations, of Mrs. Ferrars's resolution that both her sons should marry well, and of the danger attending any young woman who attempted to DRAW HIM IN; that Mrs. Dashwood could neither pretend to be unconscious, nor endeavor to be calm.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
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