Oh my word Homonyms, Homophones, Homographs

Homonyms are the words that sound same when they are pronounced but are spelt differently or could be spelt alike. Examples are: Pole (polish citizen), pole (bamboo or wooden pole, a long pipe); bail, bale; bait, bate; band, banned; bald, bawled; bark (tree’s cover), bark (shout of a dog), bark (command), braque (a sailing ship), bite, byte, broach (to raise a sensitive topic for talking about), brooch (is an ornament fastened to a garment with a hinged pin, and others. Homophones are further categorized as homophones, homographs and heteronyms.

Homophones are words that are pronounced or sound same but have different spellings and different meanings. Home means same, phone means sound: same-sounding words! Such as to, too, and two; bear (animal), bare (naked or empty), pause, paws; pee, pea; peak, peek, pique; flair, flare; flew, flue, flu; pearl, purl; flour, flower; plum, plumb; ant, aunt; allowed, loud; aisle, isle; air, heir, err; faze, phase; pedal, peddle, petal; acts, ax; discreet, discrete; one, won; overdo, overdue; draft, draught, their, there; deer, dear; hear, here, patience, patients; whine, wine; we, wee; weather, whether; yoke, yolk; yore, your, you’re

Homographs are words that have similar, or same spellings, or words that have the same spellings but different meanings and pronunciation and sometimes their origin or etymology. Homographs are words that have more than one meaning or derivation but different pronunciation.

Examples for homographs are: ship’s bow (type of knot or incline), bow and arrow; obJECT (verb: to oppose), OBject (noun: a thing, an article); close (shut the door), close (my house is close to his); bat (an animal), bat (a cricket bat or baseball bat); minute (tiny), minute (a unit of time); ball (spherical in shape), ball (a dance event); fly (an insect), fly (movement in the air); left (direction: turn to your left please), left (went: he left us here and went away!); pupil (part of eye); well ( a hole in the earth to gather water, and then collect the water for drinking or irrigating), well (in good condition: are you well?); pupil (a student); sewer (drain for carrying waste), sewer (person who sews or stitches); wound (to injure: she wounded me), wound (verb, past tense of wind: she wound up her business); fan (an admirer of someone such a fans of Cate Blanchett or Amir Khan), fan (a device that enables flow of air such as a ceiling fan or table fan), and others.

Kovuuri G Reddy