Hi, Anton!  Recently you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:

 [re timbre & timber]
AH>  The first pertains to tone colour or sound quality...
AH>  the acoustical principle which enables us to recognize
AH>  the voices of our nearest & dearest or to distinguish
AH>  between an oboe & a clarinet when we can't see who &/or
AH>  what is involved, while the second pertains to trees or
AH>  to the wood derived therefrom.

AS>  Thanks for the explanation, Ardith.  It was a mental
AS>  sleep,


           Not to worry.  IMHO your usage of English is very good & I am quite in awe of anyone here who has succeeded in mastering a foreign alphabet.  :-))



AS>  but you reminded me of this interesting phenomena,


           Singular -- phenomenon.  Plural -- phenomena, from Latin via Greek.



AS>  when the same word imported by different routes
AS>  acquires different meanings.  The original
AS>  meaning of `timbre' is of course wood, but the
AS>  pecuiliar warm colouration of the sound of wooden
AS>  musical instruments lent the French spelling a new
AS>  meaning.


           Yes, I understand.  I like the tone quality of wooden instruments & I'm interested in doublets too.  Another example which stuck in my mind when I first ran across it is "cattle" and "chattel".  Once again, while the meanings as listed in the dictionary are not the same I can see a relationship....  :-)



AS>  Casting about for more examples, I looked up
AS>  friction' and `frisson' and learned the name
AS>  of the phenomena -- doublet.


           I hadn't thought of this example, but my GAGE CANADIAN agrees.  :-)




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+