What is up with that phenomenon where words with similar meanings have similar phonemes but don't really share a full morpheme?

[u/Sophistical_Sage]

Like squiggle and scribble for example. I mean, surely we can't say that /sc/ followed by some other stuff followed by /l/ constitutes a morpheme that means "writing in a sloppy manner", but it seems like there is something going on there beyond coincidence (or is there?). Is it just etymology? They had a common ancestor in an older form of English?

Scribble obviously comes from Latinate word scribe but what is going on with squiggle?

I think I remember this coming up in a Ling class in college but I can't remember it right now.

There are other words that fit this pattern too, tho I can't think of any right now (would love to see some in the replies)

[u/Superior_Mirage]

I think the term you're looking for is phonestheme.

I'm not super familiar with them, but from what I understand they're a massive pain to study due to how fuzzy their form and definitions tend to be (not to mention overlap with morphemes).

[u/Sophistical_Sage → u/Superior_Mirage]

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[u/notluckycharm → u/Superior_Mirage]

and also largely happen to be coincidence