Definition of "cognacy" []

• The relationship between cognates; the condition of sharing a common ancestor term in another language. (noun)
• The degree to which two languages share cognates, usually expressed as a percentage (noun)

Wiktionary.org : Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License

• "Peter T Daniels a Semiticiste and regular at sci.lang, he say: "Etymological dictionary for Arabic" doesn't make much sense, since the Arabic lexicon is so much vaster than that of any other Semitic language, since lexicography has been going on for over a thousand years, and etymological dictionaries of all the other Semitic languages mine the native Arab lexica for more or less plausible candidates for cognacy."