Word.ws English Dictionary

false cognates

false cognates is the plural of false cognate.

Meaning of false cognate

Noun

false cognate (plural false cognates)

  1. A word that appears to be cognate (etymologically related) to another given word, but in fact is not.
    • 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...2015, Donna Spangler, John Alex Mazzante, Using Reading to Teach a World Language, →ISBN, page 34
  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).
    • 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, […]2010, Gregory M. Shreve, Erik Angelone, Translation and Cognition, →ISBN, page 324

Questions about false cognates

What is false cognates the plural of?
False cognates is the plural of false cognate.

Words near false cognates in the dictionary

  1. false ceiling
  2. false chanterelle
  3. false chanterelles
  4. false cirrus
  5. false cognate
  6. false cognates
  7. false colour
  8. false colours
  9. false conception
  10. false conceptions
  11. false consciousness

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: false cognates (page history and authors); false cognate (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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