Tuesday 2 February 2016

Words that have the same sound but different meanings

In linguistics, a homonym is words that share the same pronunciations but have different meanings, whether spelled the same or not.  Homographs are words that share the same spelling, regardless of their pronunciation. Homphones are words that share the same pronunciation, regardless of their spelling.
The relationship between a set of homonyms is called homonymy. eg. stalk (part of a plant) and stalk (follow/harass a person) and the pair left (past tense of leave) and left I (opposited of right). Some time the distinction between "true" homonyms are unrelated in orgin, such as skate (glide on ice) and skate (the fish)
Poysenmous homonyms or plysemes which have a shared origin, such as mouth (of a river) and mouth (of an animal).

In non-technical contexts, the term "homonym" may be used (somewhat confusingly) to refer to words that are either homographs or homophones. The words row (propel with oars) and row (argument) and row (a linear arrangement of seating) are considered homographs, while the words read (peruse) and reed (waterside plant) would be considered homophones; under this looser definition, both groups of words represent groups of homonyms.

The adjective homonymous can additionally be used wherever two items share the same name,independent of how close they are or aren't related in terms of their meaning or etymology.

Here are a list of words.

ad/add
affect/effect
ail/ale
aisle/I'll
ant/aunt
ate/eight
be/bee
beach/beech
beat/beet
bald/bawled
bare/bear
base/bass
billed/build
blew/blue
by/bye/buy
cell/sell
cent/scent/sent
chili/chilly
close/clothes
days/daze
dear/deer
do/dew/due
die/dye
died/dyed
doe/dough
earn/urn
ewe/yew/you
facts/fax
fare/fair
fairy/ferry
feat/feet
fir/fur
flea/flee
flew/flu/flue
flour/flower
for/fore/four
forth/fourth
foul/fowl
groan/grown
guessed/guest
gym/Jim
hair/hare
hairy/Harry
hall/haul
halve/have
he'd/heed
heal/heel
hear/here
heard/herd
hi/high
him/hymn
hour/our
idle/idol
in/inn
it's/its
knead/need
know/no
knows/nose
lay/lei
lead/led
leak/leek
lends/lens
lessen/lesson
lie/lye
links/lynx
loan/lone
lochs/locks/lox
made/maid
mail/male
main/mane
maize/maze
mall/maul
manner/manor
massed/mast
meat/meet
missed/mist
moan/mown
moose/mousse
morning/mourning
muscle/mussel
navel/naval
none/nun
not/knot
oar/or/ore
oh/owe
one/won
overdo/overdue
pail/pale
pane/pain
pair/pare/pear
passed/past
pause/paws
pea/pee
peace/piece
peak/peek
pedal/peddle
pi/pie
plane/plain
pole/poll
pray/prey
presence/presents
pride/pryed
prince/prints
profit/prophet
pros/prose
quarts/quartz
racket/racquet
rain/reign
raise/rays/raze
rap/wrap
read/red
read/reed
real/reel
recede/reseed
review/revue
roe/row
right/rite/write
ring/wring
road/rode/rowed
roam/Rome
role/roll
root/route
rote/wrote
rough/ruff
rye/wry
sachet/sashay
sacks/sax
sail/sale
scene/seen
sea/see
seam/seem
sear/seer
serf/surf
sew/so
shoe/shoo
sic/sick
sighs/size
Sioux/sue
slay/sleigh
soar/sore
sole/soul
some/sum
son/sun
sonny/sunny
soot/suit
stair/stare
stake/steak
straight/strait
suite/sweet
tea/tee

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