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Concept
Homophone
Summary
A homophone (ˈhɒməfoʊn,_ˈhoʊmə-) is a word that is pronounced the same (to varying extent) as another word but differs in meaning. A homophone may also differ in spelling. The two words may be spelled the same, for example rose (flower) and rose (past tense of "rise"), or spelled differently, as in rain, reign, and rein. The term homophone may also apply to units longer or shorter than words, for example a phrase, letter, or groups of letters which are pronounced the same as another phrase, letter, or group of letters. Any unit with this property is said to be homophonous (həˈmɒfənəs).
Homophones that are spelled the same are also both homographs and homonyms, e.g. the word read, as in "He is well read" (he is very learned) vs. the sentence "I read that book" (I have finished reading that book).
Homophones that are spelled differently are also called heterographs, e.g. to, too, and two.
"Homophone" derives from Greek homo- (ὁμο‐), "same", and phōnḗ (φωνή), "voice, utterance".
Homophones are often used to create puns and to deceive the reader (as in crossword puzzles) or to suggest multiple meanings. The last usage is common in poetry and creative literature. An example of this is seen in Dylan Thomas's radio play Under Milk Wood: "The shops in mourning" where mourning can be heard as mourning or morning. Another vivid example is Thomas Hood's use of birth and berth as well as told and toll'd (tolled) in his poem "Faithless Sally Brown":
His death, which happen'd in his berth,
At forty-odd befell:
They went and told the sexton, and
The sexton toll'd the bell.
In some accents, various sounds have merged in that they are no longer distinctive, and thus words that differ only by those sounds in an accent that maintains the distinction (a minimal pair) are homophonous in the accent with the merger.
Official source
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