List of Germanic and Latinate equivalents in English


This list contains Germanic elements of the English language which have a close corresponding Latinate form. The correspondence is semantic—in most cases these words are not cognates, but in some cases they are doublets, i.e., ultimately derived from the same root, generally Proto-Indo-European, as in cow and beef, both ultimately from PIE *gʷōus.
The meanings of these words do not always correspond to Germanic cognates, and occasionally the specific meaning in the list is unique to English.
Those Germanic words listed below with a Frankish source mostly came into English through Anglo-Norman, and so despite ultimately deriving from Proto-Germanic, came to English through a romance language. This results in some Germanic doublets, such as yard and garden, through Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman respectively.

List of Germanic and Latinate equivalents in English

* reconstructed form

Noun/adjective doublets

In particular, the use of Latinate words in the sciences gives us pairs with a native Germanic noun and a Latinate adjective: