Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Related by blood; having a common ancestor.
  • adjective Related in origin, as certain words in genetically related languages descended from the same ancestral root; for example, English name and Latin nōmen from Indo-European *nŏ̄-men-.
  • adjective Related or analogous in nature, character, or function.
  • noun One related by blood or origin with another, especially a person sharing an ancestor with another.
  • noun A word related to one in another language.
  • noun A sequence of university courses taken as an adjunct to a graduate degree program.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Allied by blood; connected or related by birth; specifically, of the same parentage, near or remote, as another. See cognation, 1.
  • Related in origin; traceable to the same source; proceeding from the same stock or root; of the same family, in a general sense: as, cognate languages or dialects; words cognate in origin.
  • Allied in nature, quality, or form; having affinity of any kind: as, cognate sounds.
  • Any similar notions.
  • noun One connected with another by ties of kindred; specifically, in the plural, all those whose descent can be traced from one pair. In its technical use in Roman law it implied a lawful marriage as the source. See agnate and cognation, 1.
  • noun Anything related to another by origin or derivation, as a language or a word: as, the Latin and Greek languages are cognates.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Law) One who is related to another on the female side.
  • noun One of a number of things allied in origin or nature.
  • adjective Allied by blood; kindred by birth; specifically (Law), related on the mother's side.
  • adjective Of the same or a similar nature; of the same family; proceeding from the same stock or root; allied; kindred.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective linguistics Either descended from the same attested source lexeme of ancestor language, or held on the grounds of the methods of historical linguistics to be regular reflexes of the unattested, reconstructed form of proto-language.
  • noun One of a number of things allied in origin or nature.
  • noun law, dated One who is related to another on the female side.
  • noun law, dated One who is related to another, both having descended from a common ancestor through legal marriages.
  • noun A word either descended from the same base word of the same ancestor language as the given word, or strongly believed to be a regular reflex of the same reconstructed root of proto-language as the given word.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective having the same ancestral language
  • adjective related in nature
  • noun a word is cognate with another if both derive from the same word in an ancestral language
  • adjective related by blood
  • noun one related by blood or origin; especially on sharing an ancestor with another

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin cognātus : co-, co- + gnātus, born, past participle of nāscī, to be born; see genə- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin cognātus ("related by blood"), from nātus ("born").

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Examples

  • To use the word cognate implies a family-tree model, which is still the most commonly accepted image that we have for the relations of the Indo-European languages: It ain’t perfect, but it runs.

    No Uncertain Terms William Safire 2003

  • To use the word cognate implies a family-tree model, which is still the most commonly accepted image that we have for the relations of the Indo-European languages: It ain’t perfect, but it runs.

    No Uncertain Terms William Safire 2003

  • To use the word cognate implies a family-tree model, which is still the most commonly accepted image that we have for the relations of the Indo-European languages: It ain’t perfect, but it runs.

    No Uncertain Terms William Safire 2003

  • To use the word cognate implies a family-tree model, which is still the most commonly accepted image that we have for the relations of the Indo-European languages: It ain’t perfect, but it runs.

    No Uncertain Terms William Safire 2003

  • We welcome work from historians or those in cognate disciplines, including gender studies, Native American studies, religious studies, or cultural studies.

    Historicizing and Problematizing Twilight 2009

  • We welcome work from historians or those in cognate disciplines, including gender studies, Native American studies, religious studies, or cultural studies.

    Archive 2009-06-01 2009

  • The very word "islam" comes from a word cognate to shalom, which means peace in Hebrew [and which sounds less threatening to agnostics and atheists than the Arabic-to-English translation].

    Rob Kirkpatrick: Feisal Abdul Rauf's New York Times Op-Ed [With Annotations From an Agnostic] 2010

  • The very word "islam" comes from a word cognate to shalom, which means peace in Hebrew [and which sounds less threatening to agnostics and atheists than the Arabic-to-English translation].

    Rob Kirkpatrick: Feisal Abdul Rauf's New York Times Op-Ed [With Annotations From an Agnostic] 2010

  • The very word "islam" comes from a word cognate to shalom, which means peace in Hebrew [and which sounds less threatening to agnostics and atheists than the Arabic-to-English translation].

    Rob Kirkpatrick: Feisal Abdul Rauf's New York Times Op-Ed [With Annotations From an Agnostic] 2010

  • Tillières, _Tegulense castrum_, bears a name cognate with the Kerameikos of Athens and with the Tuilleries of Paris.

    Sketches of Travel in Normandy and Maine Edward Augustus Freeman 1857

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