Homophones, Homographs & Homonyms - Language Notes

HOMOPHONES
Homophones are words that sound the same way as another word, but have different meanings. The words can either be spelt differently or the same. They are sometimes used to make puns. Here is a list of homophones:

air, heir
bare, bear
check, cheque
desert, dessert
earn, urn
feet, feat
genes, jeans
hear, here
in, inn
knew, new
laps, lapse
made, maid
nun, none
one, won
pail, pale
real, reel
sale, sail
tale, tail
waist, waste
yolk, yoke

HOMOGRAPHS
Homographs are words that are spelt the same, but have different meanings, and sometimes, different sounds. They are also sometimes used to make puns. Here is a list of homographs:

beat - to strike or overcome / beat - exhaust
bail - to clear water / bail - to release a prisoner
back - to return to an original position / back - the opposite of front
train - a vehicle / train - to teach

HOMONYMS
Homonyms are a set of words that have the same spelling and the same sound, but different meanings. Therefore, a homonym can also be classified as a homophone and a homograph. Like homophones and homographs, they are also sometimes used to make puns. The two lists above, homophones and homographs, comprises the list for homonyms.

Contributor: Leisa Samuels-Thomas

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homophone
http://www.bifroest.demon.co.uk/misc/homophones-list.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homonym
http://homeworktips.about.com/od/englishhomework/a/homonyms.htm



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