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BROTHER-IN-LAW
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Irregular inflected form: brothers-in-law
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A brother by marriage
Classified under:
Hypernyms ("brother-in-law" is a kind of...):
in-law; relative-in-law (a relative by marriage)
Context examples:
By the time Mrs. Price's answer arrived, there remained but a very few days more to be spent at Mansfield; and for part of one of those days the young travellers were in a good deal of alarm on the subject of their journey, for when the mode of it came to be talked of, and Mrs. Norris found that all her anxiety to save her brother-in-law's money was vain, and that in spite of her wishes and hints for a less expensive conveyance of Fanny, they were to travel post; when she saw Sir Thomas actually give William notes for the purpose, she was struck with the idea of there being room for a third in the carriage, and suddenly seized with a strong inclination to go with them, to go and see her poor dear sister Price.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
She was always on friendly terms with her brother-in-law; and in the children, who loved her nearly as well, and respected her a great deal more than their mother, she had an object of interest, amusement, and wholesome exertion.
(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)
His sister and brother-in-law seconded him; but they were frustrated by their heavy outfit and their own incompetence.
(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)
"Makin' dates outside, eh?" his brother-in-law sneered.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
The rich brother-in-law near Bristol was the pride of the alliance, and his place and his carriages were the pride of him.
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
Reminding him of the fact, that Mr. Peggotty derived a steady, though certainly a very moderate income from the bequest of his late brother-in-law, I promised to do so.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
Rendered spiritless by the ill-success of all their endeavours, he had yielded to his brother-in-law's entreaty that he would return to his family, and leave it to him to do whatever occasion might suggest to be advisable for continuing their pursuit.
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
Grant's bailiff, I believe I had better keep out of his way; and my brother-in-law himself, who is all kindness in general, looked rather black upon me when he found what I had been at.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
She told us many details about her brother-in-law the steward, and then wandering off on the subject of her former lodgers, the medical students, she gave us a long account of their delinquencies, with their names and those of their hospitals.
(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Hal and his sister and brother-in-law listened unwillingly, pitched tent, and overhauled the outfit.
(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)
