Language Arts This article will define the meanings of paronyms, show how paronyms can be categorized, give examples of paronyms across languages, and explain false cognates. Keep reading for more information and tips on paronyms.

There are several meanings of the word paronym. But the definition that shows up most often is that paronyms are words that have the same stem, or in other words, words that have the same root. Another word for paronym in is cognate. You already know many paronyms, even though you may not have heard this name for them before. To learn more about paronyms, continue reading this article.

Categorizing Paronyms

Paronyms can be categorized in several ways. We could speak about two different types of paronyms: those that look like they're related and those that don't. Coming from the same root doesn't mean that words came into English at the same time or in the same way. So, while paronyms beauty and beauteous share the first 5 letters, paronyms dubious and doubtful look far less alike, though they both have the letters d, u, and b in the first syllable.

Another way to categorize paronyms is by whether or not they sound alike. Paronyms may be differentiated by having different prefixes or suffixes and added word syllables can change stress and other elements of pronunciation. Paronyms beaut and beautiful sound identical for the first syllable. Paronyms legal and legislate sound quite different, with the pronounciation of both e and g changing when the suffix is applied, even though the spelling of the first three letters is identical.

A third way to categorize paronyms is the ones that are words in the same language and the ones include words in more than one language. English, with words from so many language, also has paronyms with many, many different languages, although Spanish, French, and German are three that often are referred to.

Paronyms Across Languages

Paronyms across languages can also be of two types: those that are identical in orthography, and those that are different (even those that are homographs, may sound different).

In the category of identical paronyms, English and Spanish, for example, both have the adjectives brutal and natural and the nouns actor, animal, and hospital. English and French, for example, both have the adjectives possible and impossible and the nouns restaurant and cousin. English and German, for example, both have the adjectives elegant, modern, and wild.

 In the category of paronyms that are not identical are all those in which the pair form capitonyms (see the article “Capitonyms” for more information). Examples are these English and German paronyms:

English	German
finger	(der) Finger
sport	(der) Sport
party	(die) Party

You can see that the only difference between the English and the German version of these words is that the English version is spelled with all the letter in lower case, while the German version in each case begins with a capital letter.

Other paronyms that are not identical may differ for a variety of reasons and include examples like this:

English	German
dance	tanzen
drink	trinken
under	unter
English	Spanish
idealism	idealismo
optimism	optimismo
organism	organismo
English	French
cinema	cinéma
salad	salade
telephone	télévision

There are several notable differences here: we can see in the first set that d in English is sometimes rendered as t in German; in the second set, we can see that the Spanish version has an added o at the end relative to the English version; in the third set, we can see the difference in one case is the letter e, and in the others, the French use accents where ther are none in English.

False Cognates

When identifying paronyms, is important to be aware of words that look like they would have identical meanings in two language, but actually do not (although they may, in fact, share a common root. The existence of these is a good reason to check a dictionary rather than jumping to conclusions based on similar orthography. An example of false cognates are the English word library and the French word librairie, which means not “library” but “bookstore.” Although these words are of the type referred to as “false cognates,” they are, nevertheless, paronyms.

Sources

English Spanish Dictionary: English Spanish Cognates - esdict.com