They are alike, born together, have similar shapes and meaning too. Do you know who we are talking about? We are talking about cognate words. But have you ever heard this expression before? After all, what are these cognate words? Let's carefully analyze the meaning of the word cognateand discover some clues.
cognatecomes from latin cognathus, an ancient language that gave rise to our language, and means kinship, similarity, connection. Therefore, we can say that the expression “cognate words” refers to words that were born together and that, therefore, have many things in common.
Want to see just how you already know what “sister words” are? See some examples of cognate words:
Iron, Blacksmith, Ironwork, Rust
Stone, Mason, Stone, Stone
Tooth, denture, dental, tooth
Did you see? The words you saw in the example derive from the same root or have the same etymological origin, that is, they are similar both in form and content. It's not enough to be Apparently similar to be considered cognate, when that happens, we have what we call words false cognates. Want to see an example?
Hunger and infamous.
At first glance, they are similar, but there is no relationship between the two words. Hunger we all know what it is, but infamous - make no mistake - it is not the one who is hungry, infamous is an adjective that qualifies something or someone very famous. Did you see? Watch out for cognate words and false cognates!
By Luana Castro
Graduated in Letters
