Word.ws English Dictionary

mothers-in-law

mothers-in-law is the plural of mother-in-law.

Meaning of mother-in-law

Noun

mother-in-law (plural mothers-in-law or (colloquial, nonstandard) mother-in-laws)

  1. The mother of one's spouse.
    • For I am come to ſet a man at variance* againſt his father, ⁊ the daughter againſt her mother, and the daughter in law againſt her mother in law.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Matthew 10:35
  2. A mother-in-law apartment.
  3. A mother-in-law sandwich.
  4. (obsolete) A stepmother.
    • 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,1811, Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility
  5. (uncountable) A spicy Caribbean sauce made with peppers, carrots, onions, lime juice, etc.

Questions about mothers-in-law

What is mothers-in-law the plural of?
Mothers-in-law is the plural of mother-in-law.

Words near mothers-in-law in the dictionary

  1. mothers superior
  2. mothers up
  3. Mothers' Day
  4. Mothers' Days
  5. mothers' lines
  6. mothers-in-law
  7. mothers-out-law
  8. mothers-to-be
  9. Mothersbaugh
  10. Mothershead
  11. Mothersheads

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: mothers-in-law (page history and authors); mother-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)-Flame, not lame-mothers-in-law.wav.

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