West Germanic cognates

This is a list of cognates shared between the West Germanic languages. I have limited this to English (and Old English), Dutch, and German.

What are cognates? Simply put, they are words that have been inherited from the same parent word. For example, the English word fish and the German word Fisch are cognates and come from the same Proto-Germanic word. In this case, it is quite easy to see that the two words are related; in many other cases, however, the kinship is not as easy to spot. For example, the English word eat is cognate with German essen, even though they do not resemble each other at first. However, through knowledge of sound changes, we can determine what words are cognate.

English words that are in bold are those that did not survive up to New English. Dutch or German words in parentheses are those that are apparently archaic or obsolete.

First- and second-person pronouns:

Nouns:

Adjectives:

Cardinal numbers:

Historical Old English strong verbs:

Other verbs:

Adverbs, conjunctions, and prepositions: