Dictionary

false cognate en · NOUN

Meanings

1. A word that appears to be cognate (etymologically related) to another given word, but in fact is not.
   • Conversely, the Italian word cazzo [cock, penis] and the Spanish word cazo [ladle, small saucepan] would be false friends and false cognates inasmuch as their respective meanings are different; additionally, there is not any etymological [...] common root for both words. This makes the set of false friends wider than the set of false cognates, since all false cognates are false friends, but not all false friends are false cognates. 2012, Pedro J. Chamizo-Domínguez, Semantics and Pragmatics of False Friends, →ISBN, page 3:
   • I don't speak Chinese, but "Mama" is a false cognate, means the same thing in English, Swahili, Navajo-- 2011, Brian K. Vaughan, Pia Guerra, “Motherland”, in Y: The Last Man: The Deluxe Edition Book 5, page 36:
   • 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 interchangeably by some teachers[. ... Learn to] recognize false cognates, which are pairs of words in different languages that are similar in form and meaning but have different roots. 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:

Forms

Relateds

lists of false friends in various languages