Word.ws English Dictionary

false friend

UK/ˌfɒls ˈfɹɛnd//ˌfɔls ˈfɹɛnd/

false friend noun: a word in a language that bears a deceptive resemblance to a word in another language but in fact has a different meaning.

Noun

false friend (plural false friends)

  1. A word in a language that bears a deceptive resemblance to a word in another language but in fact has a different meaning.
    • A word and its false friend may well be etymologically related: in such cases semantic shifts have made them drift apart.
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see false, friend.

false friend meaning in Hindi, Urdu, Arabic and Indonesian

false friend in Hindi

type of word
झूठा दोस्त jhūṭhā dost

false friend in Urdu

type of word
جُھوٹا دوسْت jhūṭā dost

false friend in Arabic

type of word
شِبْه نَظِير šibh naẓīr

false friend in Indonesian

type of word
teman palsu
More languagesFewer languages
false friend in Thai
เพื่อนเทียม pʉ̂ʉan-tiiam, เพื่อนเท็จ pʉ̂ʉan-tét

Synonyms of false friend

Forms of false friend

pluralfalse friends

Origin of false friend

Calque of French faux-ami, from the longer phrase faux amis du traducteur (“false friends of a translator”), first used by Maxime Kœssler and Jules Derocquigny in 1928 in their book Les Faux Amis ou les trahisons du vocabulaire anglais (False Friends, or the Pitfalls of the English Vocabulary).

Questions about false friend

What does false friend mean?
False friend means a word in a language that bears a deceptive resemblance to a word in another language but in fact has a different meaning.
What is false friend in Hindi?
False friend in Hindi is झूठा दोस्त (jhūṭhā dost). See False friend meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is false friend?
False friend is a noun.
How do you pronounce false friend?
False friend is pronounced /ˌfɒls ˈfɹɛnd/ (UK).
What is the plural of false friend?
The plural of false friend is false friends.

Words near false friend in the dictionary

  1. false flax
  2. false flax oil
  3. false flax oils
  4. false foxglove
  5. false foxgloves
  6. false friend
  7. false friends
  8. false fruit
  9. false fruits
  10. false galena
  11. false gavial

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: false friend (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-false friend.ogg, en-au-false friend.ogg.

Cite this entry: “false friend.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/false_friend. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.