mother-in-law
Americannoun
-
mothers-in-law
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of mother-in-law
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English moder in lawe; see origin at mother 1 ( def. ), in ( def. ), law 1 ( def. ); from Middle English in-lawe “in law,” i.e., “a person within the regulation and protection of the law,” based on the prohibition by Roman civil law and, later, Christian canon law, of marriages within four degrees of consanguinity, i.e., up to and including first cousins
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Debu Sapkota, a 58-year-old driver, came to post photos of his 83-year-old mother-in-law and granddaughter who went missing in the town of Trishuli Bazaar, swept away by last week's surge.
From Barron's ● Sep. 1, 2026
And I never saw this coming: She became my mother-in-law.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 28, 2026
Molly signed up for an Elite Caribbean cruise with her mother in February, also taking her husband and mother-in-law.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 27, 2026
"She was begging for help," Clancy's former mother-in-law, Susan Clancy, said of a woman she described as a "very nurturing, very loving" mother.
From BBC ● Aug. 22, 2026
The mother-in-law problem is abated because the new daughter has a privacy she never had and a place of her own in which to build the structure of a family.
From "Travels with Charley in Search of America" by John Steinbeck
They teased one another, complained about overbearing mothers-in-law and celebrated milestones, like a daughter’s quinceañera.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 30, 2025
No one today any longer wishes to hear jokes about nagging mothers-in-law, spendthrift wives or old jalopies, and the men and women who once told them to hardy plaudits are now forgotten.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 14, 2025
Lila Charif, Bahar Tavakolian and Laya Kadjavi, whose mothers and mothers-in-law were also close to mine, drew much inspiration from her in their own cooking.
From Salon ● Sep. 15, 2024
There, a team led by medical anthropologist Adelaide Lusambili of Africa International University conducted interviews with dozens of pregnant women, new mothers, male partners, mothers-in-law, community health care workers, and community leaders in 2021.
From Science Magazine ● Sep. 27, 2023
Daughters who had complained bitterly about the responsibilities of taking care of their aged mothers-in-law had altered when Sula locked Eva away, and they began cleaning those old women’s spittoons without a murmur.
From "Sula" by Toni Morrison
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
