DAUGHTER-IN-LAW (daughters-in-law)

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

Irregular inflected form: daughters-in-law   

 Dictionary entry overview: What does daughter-in-law mean? 

• DAUGHTER-IN-LAW (noun)
  The noun DAUGHTER-IN-LAW has 1 sense:

1. the wife of your son

  Familiarity information: DAUGHTER-IN-LAW used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DAUGHTER-IN-LAW (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The wife of your son

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("daughter-in-law" is a kind of...):

in-law; relative-in-law (a relative by marriage)

 Context examples 

Under a mistaken persuasion of her possessions and claims, he had courted her acquaintance in Bath, solicited her company at Northanger, and designed her for his daughter-in-law.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

The two ladies, even in the short time they had been together, had disagreed; and the bitterness of the elder against her daughter-in-law might perhaps arise almost as much from the personal disrespect with which she had herself been treated as from sensibility for her son.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

And on Mrs Musgrove's side, it was, I make a rule of never interfering in any of my daughter-in-law's concerns, for I know it would not do; but I shall tell you, Miss Anne, because you may be able to set things to rights, that I have no very good opinion of Mrs Charles's nursery-maid: I hear strange stories of her; she is always upon the gad; and from my own knowledge, I can declare, she is such a fine-dressing lady, that she is enough to ruin any servants she comes near.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

I know he wanted to speak, but I think, from something he once hinted, that he had promised his father not to do anything of the sort yet a while, for he is a rash boy, and the old gentleman dreads a foreign daughter-in-law.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

So acutely did Mrs. Dashwood feel this ungracious behaviour, and so earnestly did she despise her daughter-in-law for it, that, on the arrival of the latter, she would have quitted the house for ever, had not the entreaty of her eldest girl induced her first to reflect on the propriety of going, and her own tender love for all her three children determined her afterwards to stay, and for their sakes avoid a breach with their brother.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

This point was just arranged, when a visitor arrived to tear Emma's thoughts a little from the one subject which had engrossed them, sleeping or waking, the last twenty-four hours—Mrs. Weston, who had been calling on her daughter-in-law elect, and took Hartfield in her way home, almost as much in duty to Emma as in pleasure to herself, to relate all the particulars of so interesting an interview.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

My father and brother had not made my marriage known to their acquaintance; because, in the very first letter I wrote to apprise them of the union—having already begun to experience extreme disgust of its consequences, and, from the family character and constitution, seeing a hideous future opening to me—I added an urgent charge to keep it secret: and very soon the infamous conduct of the wife my father had selected for me was such as to make him blush to own her as his daughter-in-law.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The contempt which she had, very early in their acquaintance, felt for her daughter-in-law, was very much increased by the farther knowledge of her character, which half a year's residence in her family afforded; and perhaps in spite of every consideration of politeness or maternal affection on the side of the former, the two ladies might have found it impossible to have lived together so long, had not a particular circumstance occurred to give still greater eligibility, according to the opinions of Mrs. Dashwood, to her daughters' continuance at Norland.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

Her eagerness to be gone from Norland was preserved from diminution by the evident satisfaction of her daughter-in-law in the prospect of her removal; a satisfaction which was but feebly attempted to be concealed under a cold invitation to her to defer her departure.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

To quit the neighbourhood of Norland was no longer an evil; it was an object of desire; it was a blessing, in comparison of the misery of continuing her daughter-in-law's guest; and to remove for ever from that beloved place would be less painful than to inhabit or visit it while such a woman was its mistress.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)