English
wikipedia
Noun
en-noun
- A word that appears to be cognate to – that is, to have a shared linguistic origin with – a given word, but that is in fact unrelated.
- A false friend, a word that appears to have the same meaning as a given word, but that does not.
Usage notes
Some speakers consider the usage of false cognate to mean false friend to be incorrect.
Examples of false cognates:
*Many completely unrelated languages use some variant of ma for "mother".
*English have (and the related German verb haben) and Latin habere are thought to be false cognates — have is more likely cognate to capere.
*French attendre and English attend are indeed cognates (they have a shared root), but they are false friends (they have different meanings), thus, they are only false cognates in the second sense.
See also
false friend
tr:false cognate
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