I need to tell what type of cognates these are.

Question

eclair, quiche, hors-d‘œuvres, restaurant, and à la mode

Answer 1

Hi Jeff W.,

Cognates are typically words from different languages that share a common origin, are spelled similarly and have similar meanings. Think "hospital = hôpital".

The words you have listed don't change spelling from French to English, but some of their meanings differ a little. For example "à la mode" in American English means "with ice cream" but in French it actually means "in the style . . . or stylish", although it is also in use for "with ice cream". When the words have different meanings, but look the same, they are "false cognates". Clearly all of your words are food-oriented, and they are more of what we'd call "borrow" or "exchange" words, because in English we actually use the French word.

A fun thing about "éclair", which everyone recognizes as that yummy pastry: the traditional zig zag decoration on the icing represents a bolt of lightening (éclair en français), thus the name of the pastry.

Hope this was helpful, Robin