Who is the son of your cousin or sister, who is the daughter-in-law and who is the daughter-in-law, and who is the daughter-in-law? Our ancestors easily understood all this. Today, to the question: what is the difference between half-brothers and half-sisters, who is the father-in-law, sister-in-law, brother-in-law - not everyone will answer right away.
The affairs of bygone years
There are probably more words in the Russian language that denote different degrees of kinship and property after two or more generations than in any other. In any case, only cousins and cousins are heard from Hollywood films. But in the Russian lexicon there is such a variety that it is difficult to remember. To be honest, gradually we began to get used to do without these words. They migrated to the category of historicisms and archaisms, and yet these words once made up the daily active vocabulary of our ancestors.
It is noteworthy that words such as: bro, sister, sister - originally meant a cousin and a sister, these are the same Western cousins and cousins. Although in Europe the meaning of the words cousin / cousin is broader than just cousins. This word is used to describe all living relatives of one generation along the lateral line. In any case, it was so in the Middle Ages. If the relatives are about the same age, then an uncle and aunts could become a cousin / cousin.
To whom is the daughter-in-law, and to whom only the daughter-in-law
In the "Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language" V. I. Dahl, the word "daughter-in-law" means "son's wife, daughter-in-law." The author further adds that this word also means the wife of a brother-in-law and the wife of two brothers to each other. Judging by the addition, a daughter-in-law can also be called a daughter-in-law by the wife of a brother's daughter-in-law, as well as the daughters-in-law themselves - the wives of brothers - each other, and, probably, then the mother-in-law also calls her daughter-in-law daughter-in-law.
In the “Dictionary of the Russian language by S. I. Ozhegov "edited by Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences N. Yu. Shvedova (23rd edition), this word is deciphered even more definitely: "daughter-in-law is a woman in relation to the father and mother of her husband, daughter-in-law."
At the same time, in the "Explanatory Dictionary of Ushakov" it is written: "The wife of a son in relation to his father, father-in-law (but not to his mother, mother-in-law!). The same opinion is shared by the Small Academic Dictionary of the publishing house of the Institute of the Russian Language of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
Etymology
There is an unscientific interpretation of the origin of the word "daughter-in-law" from the verb "to endure." Allegedly, having entered the house of her husband's parents, a young daughter-in-law is obliged to dutifully endure all the hardships of a new life, reproaches and nagging of her mother-in-law. This is, of course, folklore.
Etymological dictionaries claim that the word daughter-in-law goes back to the same stem as the son. Dahl has added in brackets after the title of the dictionary entry "Daughter-in-law": "that is, son." However, some, including M. Vasmer's Etymological Dictionary, point to the connection of the word with the Indo-European root sneu̯ - to knit. Hence the Russian - "to scurry", leading to the meaning: "daughter-in-law means binding." In common parlance, the mother-in-law calls a good daughter-in-law a little bitch.
