Word.ws English Dictionary

cognacy

cognacy noun: the relationship between cognates; the condition of sharing a common ancestor term in another language.

Noun

cognacy (countable and uncountable, plural cognacies)

  1. The relationship between cognates; the condition of sharing a common ancestor term in another language.
    • First, in depending on vocabulary, as opposed to morphology or grammar, one runs the risk of assuming cognacy between similar words when the real explanation is borrowing.2000, Bernd Heine, Derek Nurse, African Languages: An Introduction, →ISBN, page 262
  2. The degree to which two languages share cognates, usually expressed as a percentage
    • In Table 13.1 are given the percentages for the degrees of cognacy between pairs of languages in the Upper Cross group.1988, Monday B. Abasiattai, Expanding frontiers of African history: the inter-disciplinary methodology, →ISBN, page 255

Synonyms of cognacy

Forms of cognacy

pluralcognacies

Questions about cognacy

What does cognacy mean?
Cognacy means the relationship between cognates; the condition of sharing a common ancestor term in another language.
What part of speech is cognacy?
Cognacy is a noun.
What is the plural of cognacy?
The plural of cognacy is cognacies.

Words near cognacy in the dictionary

  1. cognac
  2. cognac glass
  3. cognac glasses
  4. cognacies
  5. cognacs
  6. cognacy
  7. cognancy
  8. cognate
  9. cognate accusative
  10. cognate accusatives
  11. cognate object

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cognacy (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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