Cognate Cognizance Podcast

3:58

Mulct

Cognate Cognizance Podcast ·

2026/09/08

I love reading classic books for many reasons, one of which is the lexical surprises I encounter. I was recently reading Charlotte Bronte’s lesser-known novel, “The Professor,” and I came upon the word “mulcted.” I understood it immediately because I knew its Spanish cognate well, but I never knew the word existed in English. Ugh. Once again, if only Spanish textbooks would use the actual English cognates, the Spanish words would be easier to recall, and we’d all improve our English vocabulary, too

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7:36

Mercy

Cognate Cognizance Podcast ·

2026/07/07

mercy — kind and gentle treatment of someone who might not deserve it or of those who have suffered a misfortune; a blessing from the divinemerced — the Spanish cognate of the same meaningsMiddle English took this word from French which had gotten the word from Latin’s merces which is “a price paid for something, wages, reward.” Here’s what merriam-webster.com says about the word’s origin: To the ancient Romans, the Latin word merces meant "price paid for something, wages, reward." The early

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4:37

Calenture

Cognate Cognizance Podcast ·

2026/06/01

As the days heat up, perhaps you might end up suffering from a “calenture.”calenture — a fever supposedly caused by heat, especially tropical heatcalentura — the Spanish cognate of the same meaningWe took our word from the Spanish word. The Spanish word, in turn, came from Latin’s calere which means “to be warm.”I came upon the English word in an older piece of literature in which the person was suffering from, or perhaps died from (I don’t recall which), a “calenture.” I wasn’t familiar with the

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3:35

Emissary

Cognate Cognizance Podcast ·

2026/05/04

I like to use the word “missive” to refer to a handwritten letter. I suspect that many people don’t know that word or think I’m silly for using it, but I like the sound of it. It comes from the same Latin root as our cognate duo for today does.emissary — an agent sent somewhere to represent someone or something on their behalf; a representativeemisario — the Spanish masculine cognate of the same meaningemisaria — the Spanish feminine cognate These words come from Latin’s emittere which means “to

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4:48

Verbose

Cognate Cognizance Podcast ·

2026/04/06

I love words, so it’s probably no wonder that one of my favorite books is my unabridged Webster’s dictionary. The word “word” comes to us from Old English, but its Latin counterpart is verbum, from which we’ve created a number of useful words, including the one that means “too many words.”verbose — a adjective to describe something that contains too many words or someone prone to wordiness (like that’s a crime or something?)verboso — the Spanish (and Italian and Portuguese) masculine cognate of the

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6:32

Utile

Cognate Cognizance Podcast ·

2026/03/11

utile — a seldom-used English adjective meaning “useful”útil — the Spanish cognate of the same meaning and the only adjective in Spanish (that I’m aware of) that means “useful”This cognate pair was unknown to me while I was teaching. In fact, until about ten minutes ago I didn’t even know the word “utile” existed in English. This post was going to be about the word “inutility” and its Spanish cognate of “inutilidad,” but while researching the word “inutility,” I came upon “inutile,” and I was

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6:41

A False Cognate?

Cognate Cognizance Podcast ·

2026/01/28

See the look on this dog’s face? This clearly expresses my own sentiments after coming upon an English word in “The Deerslayer” by James Fenimore Cooper that so clearly seemed to be a cognate of a Spanish word in which I was well versed yet that so clearly did NOT mean what I thought it should. Here is the sentence: “Master March may find it pleasant to traduce us, but sooner or later he’ll repent!” If you already knew the meaning of the word “traduce,” give yourself a well-deserved pat on the back,

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4:16

Suspire

Cognate Cognizance Podcast ·

2026/01/05

I grew up loving the cartoon Peanuts, and I always could relate to Charlie Brown, especially when he would simply sigh. During my 30 years of teaching, I sighed A LOT — ask any of my former students, and they will tell you that when they heard me sigh, they knew I was annoyed with them. Sighing was my way to release stress and tension without blowing my top — of course, I did that, too, but I tried to keep my temper in check by frequent sighing. Very frequent sighing. Extremely frequent

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2:35

Apogee

Cognate Cognizance Podcast ·

2025/12/03

Zenith, peak, culmination, apex, pinnacle — these are all considered synonyms for “apogee,” and they are all words that are very familiar to me, but I don’t see “apogee” used very frequently. I do, however, see its Spanish cognate used.apogee — the farthest or highest point; in space usage, it refers to the point in the orbit of an object (such as a satellite) orbiting the earth that is at the greatest distance from the center of the earthapogeo — the Spanish cognate of the same meaning/sThis word

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4:21

Etymology

Cognate Cognizance Podcast ·

2025/11/19

Back when I was teaching, I had the good fortune of being able to create a couple classes. One of those was Linguistics, and in that class I required my students to do a mini-report each week about a word of their choosing. In the report, they needed to share the word’s “etymology” and in doing that, the students soon came to realize that the bulk of the English words that aren’t true descendants of Old or Middle English come to us from Latin and/or Greek.The word “etymology” comes to us from Greek,

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4:50

Popinjay

Cognate Cognizance Podcast ·

2025/11/03

In Chapter 6 of “The Sword in the Stone” by T. H. White, young Arthur, known in this story as the Wart, is practicing and learning archery with Sir Ector’s son, Kay, and there is this passage:“They left the targets and had several shots at the popinjay — which was a large, bright-coloured artificial bird stuck on the top of a stick, like a parrot — and Kay missed these also.”Prior to reading this book, I’d heard of the word “popinjay” and known it only by its now-standard meaning of “a strutting

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4:14

Prairie

Cognate Cognizance Podcast ·

2025/09/02

Since the very first time I visited the Prado museum in Madrid, Spain, I knew its name translated to “meadow” in English and that it had been named that due to the meadow that was there when it was first being built in 1785 — it is now surrounded by the city. It was going to be called something else, but everyone called it “el prado,” for “the meadow,” and the name stuck.Recently, I’ve been on a number of long drives across parts of Nebraska, and the wild sunflowers are in splendid bloom, especially

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4:39

Kindergarten

Cognate Cognizance Podcast ·

2025/08/04

School is about to start. When I was young, my first year of school was “kindergarten.” I’ve long known that we got the word from German where it’s a combination of the words “kinder” for “children” and “garten” for “garden.” Spanish uses the very same word. I’m not going to define the word this week because we all know what “kindergarten” is.Instead, I want to point out something that you may or may not have noticed in all these “Cognate Cognizance” posts — the letter K is rarely used in Spanish

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5:50

Anatomy

Cognate Cognizance Podcast ·

2025/06/30

I’ve been making my way through all the seasons of “Grey’s Anatomy” on Netflix these past few months, and while I always look away during the gruesome parts, watching it often reminds me of my teaching years. When some of my advanced Spanish students would opt to take the Anatomy and Physiology (A&P) class, they’d often come to my class exclaiming about the useful overlap of the two subjects because so much of the terminology in that science class is comprised of cognates of words they’d already

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4:59

Volcano

Cognate Cognizance Podcast ·

2025/06/02

Italy’s Mount Etna, a famous volcano situated in Sicily, is in the news today because it has been shooting a large amount of ash and lava into the air. Perhaps it’s no wonder that the Romans, who lived in that part of the world, created a god of fire and made his home under a volcano.His name was Vulcan, also written as Volcanus, and from that name came the Italian word for volcano.volcano — I doubt I need to define this, but the dictionary definition is this: a vent in the crust of the earth or

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4:15

Salutary

Cognate Cognizance Podcast ·

2025/05/05

After being diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes, my boyfriend has discovered the “salutary” effects of a very strict diet that is keeping his blood sugar numbers low without insulin injections. salutary — an adjective to describe something that promotes health or is curativesaludable — the Spanish adjective cognate of the same meaning that typically simply translates to “healthy”Our word of “health” and its adjective “healthy” come to us from Old English, so we tend to use these words instead of those

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5:10

Easter

Cognate Cognizance Podcast ·

2025/04/07

Later this month is Easter, so this month’s free post and cognate duo pertain to that holy day, and I’m adding a second duo about the name of the month. Pascha — a lesser-known word meaning “Easter” or “Passover”Pascua — the Spanish cognate of the same meaning/sThese words entered Latin from Greek which got its word from Hebrew’s pesach, which translates to “skipping” or “passing over.” These words go back to the story of the Israelites who marked their doors with the blood of lambs so that the

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3:39

Nidus

Cognate Cognizance Podcast ·

2025/03/12

In George Eliot’s wonderful second novel, “The Mill on the Floss,” there is this sentence: “Certain seeds which are required to find a nidus for themselves under unfavorable circumstances have been supplied by nature with an apparatus of hooks, so that they will get a hold on very unreceptive surfaces.”The book isn’t about farming; the sentence is metaphorically describing the spiritual seed that had been scattered over an obstinate, grumpy character. Within that sentence, however, is the word

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3:12

Levitation

Cognate Cognizance Podcast ·

2025/03/03

levitation — a noun meaning “a rising or lifting in the air” — especially when it involves lifting someone in the air by supernatural meanslevitaciόn — the Spanish cognate of the same meaningWhen learning Spanish, one of the common verbs you will encounter is the verb “levantar,” which means “to lift.” The expression “levantar pesas” is “to lift weights,” and it comes up fairly early in vocabulary units centered on exercise. Later on, when learning about reflexive verbs, you’ll come upon

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3:50

Belvedere

Cognate Cognizance Podcast ·

2025/02/03

As a child of the 80’s, I watched and enjoyed the TV sitcom called “Mr. Belvedere” about a stodgy English butler who comes to live with an American family. Until recently, I’d always associated the word “belvedere” with that English butler, but then I came upon this passage in Calvino Italo’s masterpiece, “If on a winter’s night a traveler:”Today I reached the belvedere from which you can glimpse, down below, a little stretch of beach, deserted, facing the gray sea.As soon as I saw the word, I

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