In linguistics, false friends are words in different languages that look or sound similar, but differ significantly in meaning. An example is the English embarrassed and the Spanish embarazada (which means pregnant), the word parents and the Portuguese parentes (which means relatives), or the word sensible, which means reasonable in English, but sensitive in French and Spanish. In linguistics, false friends are words in different languages that look or sound similar, but differ significantly in meaning. An example is the English embarrassed and the Spanish embarazada (which means pregnant), the word parents and the Portuguese parentes (which means relatives), or the word sensible, which means reasonable in English, but sensitive in French and Spanish.