ifferentiate Between Homonyms and Polysemes

By Chris Magyar, eHow Contributor updated June 26, 2011

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The difference between a polyseme and a generic homonym comes down to spelling.

Homonyms and polysemes are terms for word pairs that sound the same but mean different things. The term "homonym" is more general, and a polyseme is a type of homonym. The term "polyseme" can only be used when the two similar-sounding words are spelled exactly the same, while the term "homonym" applies to any two words that sound the same. Differentiating between the two simply requires knowing the spelling of the words in question.
Difficulty:

Moderately Easy

Instructions
1.

1
Identify the homonym pair. For example, in the sentence "Brian was allowed to speak his thoughts aloud", the words "allowed" and "aloud" are homonyms because they sound exactly the same. They're just spelling differently.

2
Examine the spelling. If the words are spelled differently, such as with "allowed" and "aloud", then they are homonyms, not polysemes. Homonyms that are spelled differently are also called "homophones".

3
If the words are spelled the same, examine the meaning. For polysemes, make sure a word actually has two different meanings and that the word isn't merely being repeated. For example, in the sentence "Susan wanted to stand in the same place she saw her brother stand", the two instances of "stand" have the same meaning. However, "Susan wanted to stand next to the music stand" does use two words with the same spelling, each having a different meaning. The two "stand"s do have two different meanings, and thus represent a pair of polysemes.

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