@ajroach42 You're right, false cognates are word that look like they share a root but don't. There's a lot of angst in ancient linguistics trying to puzzle out the relationships between obscure languages, and alas a lot of wishful thinking when scholars take two words and try to prove they're related.

False friends look like they'd have a similar meaning but don't (whether they're real cognates or not). "Sinister" in Latin means "left", but in English it means "creepy". They're cognates, but you can't rely on that when you've neglected to memorize your Latin vocab.