Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Cognate |
CognateAdjective1. Related in nature; "connate qualities". 2. (linguistics) having the same ancestral language; "cognate languages". 3. Related by blood. Noun1. One related by blood or origin; especially on sharing an ancestor with another. 2. A word is cognate with another if both derive from the same word in an ancestral language. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "cognate" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1550. (references) |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Examples of cognates are English to pay and French payer. Another example is French venir and Latin venire (both meaning "to come"). These words are cognates since they originate in the same root (English borrowing "to pay" from Norman French, and French inheriting venir by the course of language evolution from Vulgar Latin).
False cognates are words that commonly thought to be related while they're really not. Thus, for example, many people think that the Latin verb habere and Germanic haben are cognates. However, judging by the way both languages inherit Indo-European roots, the real cognate of the Germanic haben is Latin capere, "to capture" (note however that Germanic haben and English to have are cognates, and so are Latin capere and English to capture).
It has been calculated that if one takes a word from a language, there's a 40% chance that one will find a word with roughly similar sound and meaning in another random, non-related language. Because of that, even finding several hundred similar-sounding words in a couple of languages is not enough to demonstrate that the languages are related to each other. Moreover, over the course of hundreds and thousands of years, words may change their sounding completely. Thus, for example, English five and Sanskrit pança are cognates, while English over and Hebrew a'var are not, and neither are English dog and Mbabaran dog.
Although perhaps not technically accurate, the term "false cognate" is sometimes used to refer to false friends, pairs of words in different languages that look like they might mean the same thing but don't. These words are famous for tripping up beginning language students. An example is the Spanish compromiso, which means "promise," not "compromise." Note, however, that though these have different meanings, they are actually cognates.
See also Historical-comparative linguistics.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Cognate."
Synonyms: CognateSynonyms: akin(p) (adj), blood-related (adj), connate (adj), consanguine (adj), consanguineous (adj), kin(p) (adj), blood relation (n), blood relative (n), cognate word (n), sib (n). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Consanguinity | Adjective: related, akin, consanguineous, of the blood, family, allied, collateral; cognate, agnate, connate; kindred; affiliated; fraternal. |
Relation | Adjective: relative; correlative; cognate; relating to; Verb: relative to, in relation with, referable or referrible to; belonging to; Verb: appurtenant to, in common with. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Cognate |
| English words defined with "cognate": A- ♦ cognate word, Cognateness ♦ Jury of matrons ♦ To be beside one's self. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "cognate": cognate fissure ♦ feature key ♦ Whistle Down the Wind. (references) |
| Etymologies containing "cognate": Connate. (references) |
| Domain | Title |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| "Cognate" is generally used as an adjective (general or positive) -- approximately 89.47% of the time. "Cognate" is used about 38 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 89.47% | 34 | 59,261 |
| Lexical Verb (base form) | 5.26% | 2 | 245,945 |
| Lexical Verb (infinitive) | 2.63% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Noun (singular) | 2.63% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 38 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "cognate": cognate inclusion ♦ cognate with ♦ cognate word ♦ cognate words. Additional references. | |
| Hypenated Usage | |
Ending with "cognate": non-cognate. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
cognate | 15 |
cognate false | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "cognate"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | të një burimi, që ka lidhje (concerned), i afërt (adjacent, close, connate, connected, contiguous, homogeneous, imminent, impendent, impending, intimate, near, neighboring, neighbouring, next door, nigh, proximate, thick). (various references) | |
Arabic | من أصل واحد (kindred), نسيب (akin, connection, connexion, kinsman, on familiar terms, related, relative, sibling), قريب (adjacent, akin, approaching, close, connection, connexion, contiguous, impending, kin, kinsman, near, nearby, nearer, next of kin, nigh, on familiar terms, propinquity, related, relational, relative, thereabout, thereabouts). (various references) | |
Bulgarian | сроден (affined, agnate, allied to, associated, congenial, connected, filial, kin, kindred, parotid, related, relational, sib, sister, sympathetic), сходен (akin, alike, analogous, congruent, congruous, like, osculant, similar), родствен (connate, consanguine, consanguineous). (various references) | |
Czech | příbuzný (akin, consanguineous, kindred, kinsman, related, relative, sibling). (various references) | |
Danish | kognat indeslutning (autolith, cognate inclusion, endogenous enclosure, endogenous inclusion). (various references) | |
Dutch | verwant insluitsel (autolith, cognate inclusion, endogenous enclosure, endogenous inclusion), samengevoegde aanvrage (cognate application), autholiet (autolith, cognate inclusion, endogenous enclosure, endogenous inclusion). (various references) | |
Farsi | همجنس , هم ریشه , واژه هم ریشه . (various references) | |
Finnish | homogeeninen sulkeuma (autolith, cognate inclusion, endogenous enclosure, endogenous inclusion), autoliitti (autolith, cognate inclusion, endogenous enclosure, endogenous inclusion). (various references) | |
French | proche (connection), de même origine. (various references) | |
German | verwandt (affined, akin, allied, cognitional, connatural, interrelated, kindred, related). (various references) | |
Greek | συγγενήσ (affined, akin, consanguineous, kin, kinsman, kinswoman, relative). (various references) | |
Hebrew | מאותו מקור. (various references) | |
Hungarian | rokon (affined, akin, analogous, congenial, country cousin, cousin, kin, kindred, propinquous, relation, relative), közös származású. (various references) | |
Indonesian | keluarga (family). (various references) | |
Italian | consanguineo (akin, consanguineous, kin, kinsman), legato da vincoli di parentela, affine (allied, analogous, congenial, kindred, near). (various references) | |
Manx | co-chynneydagh, co-cheintagh (congeneric, congenial, correlative, homogeneous). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | ognatecay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | cognato (conjugate). (various references) | |
Romanian | având aceeaşi origine (connate), înrudit (affined, agnate, akin, allied, congeneric, congenerous, congenial, connected, kin, kindred, related). (various references) | |
Russian | сходный (analogous, kindred, salable, similar). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | srodna reč, krvni srodnik. (various references) | |
Spanish | cognado, afín (affined, allied, ancillary, kindred, related). (various references) | |
Swedish | kognatisk, besläktad (affined, akin, allied, congenerous, congenial, connate, consanguine, consanguineous, kindred, related). (various references) | |
Thai | ซึ่งมาจาก าษาเ"ียวกัน. (various references) | |
Turkish | soydaş (agnatic, agnatical, collateral, consanguine, kin, soul brother, soul sister), kökü aynı olan sözcük, kökü aynı olan, hısım (kin, relative), ayni kökten, aynı soydan gelen, akraba olan, akraba (agnate, agnatic, akin, akin to, allied, connate, connected, connection, connexion, consanguine, flesh and blood, kin, kindred, kinsman, kinswoman, related, relative). (various references) | |
Ukrainian | схожий (affined, akin, alike, analogous, approximate, compatible, like, near, resemblant, similar), споріднене слово, споріднена мова, споріднений (affined, agnate, akin, allied, congenial, connate, connected, consanguineous, kindred, related, sib), рідний по крові, родинний (akin, home, kindred, relational, sib), кровний родич. (various references) | |
Vietnamese | cùng ngu"n, cùng một tổ tiên cùng bản chất tương tự, vật cùng ngu"n gốc b con gần, họ h ng gần. (various references) | |
Welsh | cytras (allied, related). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Latin | 500 BCE-Modern | cognatus. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "cognate": cognately, cognates. (additional references) | |
| |
"Cognate" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: canate, cognatic, cognatio, cognaty, Cognee, cognet, cogniate, Cogniot, cognite, cognitve, coguate, conat, cornate, Cugat, Konate. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
Direct Anagrams: coagent. | |
| Words within the letters "a-c-e-g-n-o-t" | |
-1 letter: cogent, octane. | |
-2 letters: agent, agone, atone, canoe, canto, cento, conga, conge, conte, cotan, enact, genoa, oaten, ocean, octan, tango, togae, tonga. | |
-3 letters: acne, aeon, agon, ante, cage, cane, cant, cate, cent, coat, cone, cote, etna, gaen, gane, gate, gent, geta, gnat, goat, gone, neat, nota, note, once, tace, taco, tang, toea, toga, tone. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-c-e-g-n-o-t" | |
+1 letter: coagents, cognates, octangle. | |
+2 letters: autogenic, cognately, conjugate, cotangent, geomantic, gluconate, octangles. | |
+3 letters: anecdotage, cocreating, coenacting, coequating, congenital, conglobate, congregant, congregate, conjugated, conjugates, corelating, cotangents, decorating, geobotanic, glauconite, gluconates, iatrogenic, iceboating, lactogenic, overacting, pathogenic, relocating. | |
+4 letters: accoutering, ancestoring, anecdotages, atherogenic, centimorgan, chaetognath, coattending, coattesting, cofeaturing, cogenerator, congealment, congelation, conglobated, conglobates, congregants, congregated, congregates, congregator, conjugately, cooperating, correlating, covenanting, decollating, excoriating, forecasting, gametogenic, genotypical, geomagnetic, gerontocrat, glauconites, gonadectomy, granulocyte, iceboatings, nonmagnetic, nonteaching, outcapering, outcheating, outreaching, overcasting, percolating, procreating, retroacting, shortchange, teratogenic, uncataloged. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Commercial | 5. Usage Frequency 6. Expressions 7. Expressions: Internet 8. Translations: Modern | 9. Translations: Ancient 10. Derivations 11. Anagrams 12. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
