Sister or cognate words

Today, as a matter of curiosity, we will delve into the sister or cognate words. It may seem new, but just like the English language, Portuguese has countless examples of words of this order.

What are sister or cognate words?

Sister or cognate words have the same linguistic “trunk”, that is, they are words that have similar, common etymological and semantic roots. If we analyze the literal meaning of the word “cognata”, we will discover that it comes from the Latin “cognatus” and means kinship, connection.

Examples of sister words

Below are the examples of sister or cognate words:

• Cognate words or sisters in law: law, legal, legalize, illegal, legislative, legislature, legislate;
• Cognate words or book sisters: book, bookstore, bookseller, booklet, bookstore, bookstore, bookstore;
• Cognate words or love sisters: love, loving, kind, unloving, sweetheart, big love;
• Cognate words or sisters of light: light, glitter, glittering, glistening, little light;
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• Cognate words or tooth sisters: tooth, little tooth, dental, denture.

false cognates

The above words derive from the same root or may have the same etymological root. However, there is also a group of words that are similar in spelling and have different meanings.

This happens because they do not come from the same semantic radical. Therefore, we can name them as false cognates or sisters. There are many paronyms, words that have different meanings but are similar in spelling and sound that fall into false cognates or sisters.

Examples: Hunger and infamous (someone famous); emigrate (change country of origin) and immigrate (enter a foreign country); length (extension) and length (greetings); description (act of describing) and discretion (being discreet); etc.

See too:

• The semantic relationships between words
• Language and language: What's the difference?