Doublet (linguistics) - Examples in English

Examples in English

Many thousands of English examples can be found, grouped according to their earliest deducible Indo-European ancestor, in Calvert Watkins, The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots. In some cases over a hundred English words can be traced to a single root. Some random examples in English include:

• shadow, shade and shed (all three from Old English sceadu "shadow, shade")
• stand, stay, state, status and static (native, Middle French, Latin (twice) and Ancient Greek via Latin, from the same Indo-European root)
• chief and chef (both from French at different times)
• secure and sure (from Latin, the latter via French)
• plant and clan (from Latin, the latter via Old Irish)
• right, rich, raj, rex, regalia, reign, royal and real (from Germanic, Celtic, Sanskrit, Latin (twice), French (twice) and Portuguese cognates, respectively)
• carton and cartoon, both ultimately the augmentative of Latin carta
• ward and guard (from Norman, the latter via French, both from Germanic); also warden and guardian.
• chrism, creme and grime (the first from Greek, the second from French, in the 14th and 19th centuries, respectively, the last from Germanic)
• cow and beef (from Proto-Indo-European; the former through Germanic – i.e. natively via Old English – the latter through Latin via French)
• wheel, whorl, cyclone, cycle, circle and chakra (Germanic twice, Greek, Greek via Latin, Latin via French, and Sanskrit)
• frenetic and frantic (both from Greek, via Old French and Latin) -- more English doublets from Greek in English words of Greek origin
• cave and cavern (from Latin 'cavus', via French and Germanic languages respectively)
• price, prize, praise, pry (a lever) and prix (all from French, some diverged in English)
• corn, kernel and grain (all ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *grnóm, the first two natively via Proto-Germanic (g → k), the last via Latin, borrowed from Old French)
• pique, pike (weapon) – both from Middle French pique
• mister, master, meister, maestro, Mistral (the name of a Mediterranean wind), magistrate are all ultimately derived from Latin magister, which means greater.