Cognate - Wikipedia: Cognates do not need to have the same meaning, which may have changed as the languages developed separately. For example, consider English starve and Dutch sterven or German sterben ("to die"); these three words all derive from the same Proto-Germanic root, *sterbaną ("die"). English dish and German Tisch ("table"), with their flat surfaces, both come from Latin discus, but it would be a mistake to identify their later meanings as the same. Discus is from Greek δίσκος (from the verb δικεῖν "to throw"). A later and separate English reflex of discus, probably through medieval Latin desca, is desk (see OED s.v. desk).
Cognates also do not need to have obviously similar forms, e.g. English father, French p�re, and Armenian հայր (hayr) all descend directly from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) *ph₂tḗr.
Cognates also do not need to have obviously similar forms, e.g. English father, French p�re, and Armenian հայր (hayr) all descend directly from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) *ph₂tḗr.