User:Quercus solaris/Velum and vellum are as veil and veal: not cognate, surprisingly

Confusingly, the words velum (/ˈviːləm/) and vellum (/ˈvɛləm/) look similar, some people pronounce the former like the latter, and both have meanings relating to thin coverings, sheets, or membranes, and yet they are not cognate, according to several dictionaries. Thus they are a pair of false cognates.

Vellum comes from a root for calf/veal (because vellum is, in the word's traditional sense, calfskin), and velum comes from a root for covering or curtain. The odd thing is that you can use animal skin as a covering or curtain, as humans often have, and I tried to see whether cognation existed based on that idea, but I found that it doesn't.

The odd relationship of velum to vellum is the same as that of veil to veal, for the same reason (they come, respectively, from the same pair of roots that aren't related but seem like they should be).

Once again, as elsewhere, the lesson is that life ain't fair.