kano

The plant: a tall hollow-stemmed grass growing in wet ground, and by extension the stem itself as a material. Sukerkano is sugar cane, fiŝkano is a fishing rod, and kanaro is a reed bed. Note that the walking stick is bastono, not kano. English cane covers both the plant and the stick; Esperanto keeps the plant in kano and sends the stick to bastono, which is the usual pattern when English has welded two ideas onto one word.

The kan- neighbourhood, half of it real. Canna was productive in Latin, so some of the look-alikes are genuine relatives: kanalo is a canal, from canalis, a channel shaped like a reed pipe, and kanono is a cannon, from Italian cannone, a big tube. Both are reeds underneath.

The rest are coincidence, and the coincidence is dense. Kanajlo, a scoundrel, is from Latin canis, a dog, by way of Italian. Kanapo, a settee, goes back to Greek konops, a mosquito, through the netted couch you slept under to avoid them. Kandelo is from candere, to shine. Kanti is from cantare. And kanzono is that same singing root arriving a second time through French. Five words that share three letters and nothing else.

The lesson generalises: shared spelling at the front of an Esperanto word means nothing at all unless the shared part is a root or an official affix. Kan- is a root in kano and coincidence everywhere else.