mother-in-law's tongue

Questions about mother-in-law's tongue

What does mother-in-law's tongue mean?

mother-in-law's tongue means "stemless plant having narrow rigid leaves often cultivated as a houseplant". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

What is another word for mother-in-law's tongue?

Close synonyms include snake plant, Sansevieria trifasciata, dumb cane, mother-in-law plant, Dieffenbachia sequine. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is mother-in-law's tongue a common word?

mother-in-law's tongue is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.