Word.ws English Dictionary

-in-law

/ɪnˌlɔ/

-in-law suffix: related through marriage.

Suffix

-in-law

  1. Related through marriage.
    • cousin-in-law

Origin of -in-law

Back-formation from mother-in-law, father-in-law, brother-in-law, etc., equivalent to in + law.

Questions about -in-law

What does -in-law mean?
-in-law means related through marriage.
What part of speech is -in-law?
-in-law is a suffix.
How do you pronounce -in-law?
-in-law is pronounced /ɪnˌlɔ/.

Words near -in-law in the dictionary

  1. -imibe
  2. -imundo
  3. -imus
  4. -in
  5. -in'
  6. -in-law
  7. -in-waiting
  8. -ina
  9. -inator
  10. -inda
  11. -ine

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: -in-law (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl--in-law.wav.

Cite this entry: “-in-law.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/-in-law. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.