Homophones, Homographs,

and Homonyms
Homophones

› Homophones are pairs (or more) of words that have the same
pronunciation, but have different spellings and different
meanings.
– Examples:
– Doe, dough
– Red, read
– Reign, rain
– Lead, led
– Write, right, rite, Wright
– By, buy, bye
– To, too, two
Homographs
› Homographs: pairs (or more) of words that have the same
spellings, but different pronunciation, different meanings.
– Examples:
– Sow, sow
– Bow, bow
– Lead, lead
– Buffet, buffet
– Does, does
Homographs (cont.)
› There are not many pairs of true homographs in English.
– True homographs are pairs (or more) of words that have different roots.
– False homographs are pairs (or more) of words that have the same root.
› Examples of false homographs: rec’ord – record’: the first is a noun, the second is a
verb, but with the same root.
› Read /rid/ – read /rɛd/: the first is the present tense, the second is the past tense.
Homonyms
› Homonyms: a group of word pairs that have the same spelling,
same pronunciation, different meanings.
› Examples:
– bow – bow
– Right – right
– Found – found – found
– Mint – mint
– Duck – duck – duck – duck
– Fly – fly
Many ways of spelling the same sound

› The /eɪ/ sound has many spellings: ea, ei, eigh, ey, ay, aCe.
› Some words are shortened.
– Examples: airplane – plane, telephone – phone, goodbye – bye, until – til,
moving picture – movie, carriage – car, taxicab – taxi, oll correct – OK (there
are different theories on this one), etc.
› Acronyms can create homophones with other words. Example: WAVES
(Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) and waives.
› There are other pairs of words that are very similar in spelling, but not the
same in pronunciation: quite and quiet, lose and loose, etc.