false cognate

false cognate (plural false cognates)

1. A word that appears to be cognate (etymologically related) to another given word, but in fact is not.
   • 2015, Donna Spangler, John Alex Mazzante, Using Reading to Teach a World Language, →ISBN, page 34:

     False cognates are words in different languages that are similar in form and meaning but have different roots. They appear to have a common linguistic origin (regardless of meaning) but actually do not. [...] The two terms, "false cognates" and "false friends," are sometimes used incorrectly or interchangeably by some teachers[. ... Learn to] recognize false cognates, which are pairs of words in different languages that are similar in form and meaning but have different roots.

   • 2011, Brian K. Vaughan, Pia Guerra, “Motherland”, in Y: The Last Man: The Deluxe Edition Book 5, page 36:

     I don't speak Chinese, but "Mama" is a false cognate, means the same thing in English, Swahili, Navajo--

   • 2012, Pedro J. Chamizo-Domínguez, Semantics and Pragmatics of False Friends, →ISBN, page 3:

     Conversely, the Italian word cazzo [cock, penis] and the Spanish word cazo [ladle, small saucepan] would be false friends and false cognates inasmuch as their respective meanings are different; additionally, there is not any etymological [...] common root for both words. This makes the set of false friends wider than the set of false cognates, since all false cognates are false friends, but not all false friends are false cognates.

2. (proscribed) A false friend: a word that appears to have the same meaning as another given word, but in fact does not (without regard to whether or not the two terms are cognate).
   • 2010, Gregory M. Shreve, Erik Angelone, Translation and Cognition, →ISBN, page 324:

     False cognates, on the other hand, are words in two languages that are identical or similar in form and may mislead the bilingual to think that they have the same or similar meaning, while their meaning is actually different, e.g., become-bekommen in English-German, […]

• Etymological relation will usually be assumed when two words are similar in both form and meaning. For example, English dog and Mbabaram dog (“dog”) would appear to be related. In fact, however, they have entirely different origins and their correspondence is purely coincidental. Therefore they are false cognates.
  • The two words are not false friends, however, because they do mean the same thing.
• When two words are similar in form only but have unresembling meanings, there is little reason to assume cognacy in the first place. Therefore words like English pie and Spanish pie (“foot”) are not prime examples of false cognates. Nevertheless they can be called such in a broader sense, because they are indeed etymologically unrelated in spite of being homographs.
  • In this case, the two words are false friends at the same time, because their meanings are different.

• Category:False cognates and false friends, lists of false friends in various languages