mother-in-law
Pluralmothers-in-law
- 1The mother of the person you are married to.
My mother-in-law is staying with us for the holidays.
He always brings flowers when he visits his mother-in-law.
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- 2A small separate apartment built into or next to a home, often for a relative.
We turned the garage into a mother-in-law for grandma.
Their new house has a mother-in-law out back.
Similarannex
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- 3A Chicago food made of a tamale on a hot dog bun with chili on top.
She bought a mother-in-law for lunch from the corner stand.
We tried a mother-in-law at the hot dog place downtown.
- 4A spicy sauce from the Caribbean made with peppers, carrots, onions, lime juice, and other things.
Add a little mother-in-law to make the chicken spicy.
Grandma makes a big jar of mother-in-law every summer from her garden peppers.
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Less common meaning
- 5A woman married to your father who is not your birth mother: a stepmother.
After his father remarried, the boy rarely spoke to his mother-in-law.
The orphan feared her new mother-in-law would favor her own children.
Similarstepmother
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Practice
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Origin
From Middle English "moder in lawe." It comes from "mother" plus "-in-law."