What term describes words that have the same or very similar forms and meanings in two languages?

• A. Cognate
• B. Loanword
• C. Idiom
• D. Homonym

Answer: (A)

Cognates are words in different languages that come from the same ancestral language and therefore have similar forms and meanings. They often look and sound alike because they share a common origin, like English family and Spanish familia, which both point to the same root and carry related meanings. This makes them feel familiar when learning a new language and helps you spot connections across languages.

A loanword is borrowed from another language and isn’t necessarily linked by a common ancestor, so its form and meaning reflect the borrowing rather than a shared origin. An idiom is a fixed expression whose meaning isn’t deducible from the individual words. A homonym is the same word (or a very similar-sounding one) with different meanings within the same language.