Homonym

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Homonym

In linguistics, a homonym is one of a group of words that share the same spelling and the same pronunciation but have different meanings, usually as a result of the two words having different origins. Some sources only require that homonyms share the same spelling or pronunciation (in addition to having different meanings), but these are the definitions most other sources give for homograph

Homograph

A homograph is one of a group of words that share the same spelling but have different meanings. When spoken, the meanings are sometimes, but not necessarily, distinguished by different pronunciations....
s and homophone

Homophone

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Homograph

Homophone

A homophone is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning. The words may be spelled the same, such as rose and rose , or differently, such as Carat , caret, and carrot, or to, two and too....
s respectively. The state of being a homonym is called homonymy. Examples of homonyms are stalk (which as a noun can mean part of a plant, and as a verb to follow/harass a person), bear (animal) and bear (carry), left (opposite of right) and left (past tense of leave). Some sources also consider the following trio of words to be homonyms, but others designate them as "only" homophones: to, too and two (actually, to, to, too, too and two, being "for the purpose of" as in "to make it easier", the opposite of "from", also, excessively, and "2", respectively). Some sources state that homonym meanings must be unrelated in origin (rather than just different). Thus right (correct) and right (opposed to left) would be polysemous (see below) and not homonyms.

There is similar confusion about the definition of some of the related terms described below. This article explains what appear to be the "standard" meanings, and variant definitions are then summarized under "Terminological confusion".

The word "homonym" comes from the conjunction of the Greek

Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
prefix homo- (?µ?-), meaning "same", and suffix -?nymos (-???µ??), meaning "name". Thus, it refers to two or more distinct concepts sharing the "same name" or signifier. An example of a homonym is bank and bank,they have the same spelling and pronunciation but different meanings.

Related terms

	Same pronunciation	Different pronunciation
Same spelling
Different spelling

Homonym

Homograph

Homophone

Heteronym (linguistics)

In linguistics, heteronyms are words with identical spellings but different pronunciations and meanings. They may vary in vowel realisation or in stress patterns, or both....
/

Heterophone

Several similar linguistic concepts are related to homonymy. The term 'homonym' is ambiguous because there are a number of ways that two meanings can share the 'same name' and because the term is used in different ways by educated speakers, and these variant meanings are recorded by dictionaries. The terms homograph and homophone are however usually defined the same way as meaning "same spelling" and "same sound" respectively, and heteronym and homonym can be seen as respective subclasses of these.

Homograph
Homograph

A homograph is one of a group of words that share the same spelling but have different meanings. When spoken, the meanings are sometimes, but not necessarily, distinguished by different pronunciations....
s are words that share the same spelling regardless of how they are pronounced. Homographs may be pronounced the same, in which case they are also homophone
Homophone

A homophone is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning. The words may be spelled the same, such as rose and rose , or differently, such as Carat , caret, and carrot, or to, two and too....
s – for example, bark (the sound of a dog) and bark (the skin of a tree). Alternatively they may be pronounced differently, in which case they are also heteronyms
Heteronym (linguistics)

In linguistics, heteronyms are words with identical spellings but different pronunciations and meanings. They may vary in vowel realisation or in stress patterns, or both....
– for example, bow (the front of a ship) and bow (a type of knot). ("Homograph" also has a specialized meaning in typography, where it may be used as a synonym for homoglyph
Homoglyph

In typography, a homoglyph is one of two or more grapheme with shapes that are either identical, or cannot be differentiated by quick visual inspection....
.)

Homophone
Homophone

A homophone is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning. The words may be spelled the same, such as rose and rose , or differently, such as Carat , caret, and carrot, or to, two and too....
s are words that share the same pronunciation regardless of how they are spelled. Homophones may be spelled the same (in which case they are also homographs) or spelled differently (in which case they are heterographs). Homographic examples include tire (to become weary) and tire (on the wheel of a car). Heterographic examples include to, too, two, and there, their, they’re.

Heteronym
Heteronym (linguistics)

In linguistics, heteronyms are words with identical spellings but different pronunciations and meanings. They may vary in vowel realisation or in stress patterns, or both....
s can be seen as the subclass of homographs (words that share the same spelling) that have different pronunciations. That is, they are homographs which are not homophones. This means words that are spelled the same but with different pronunciations (and meanings). Such words include desert (to abandon) and desert (arid region); row (to argue or an argument) and row (as in to row a boat or a row of seats). Note that the latter meaning also constitutes a homophone. Heteronyms are also sometimes called heterophones. ("Heteronym" also has a specialized meaning in poetry; see Heteronym (literature)
Heteronym (literature)

The literature concept of heteronym, invented by Portugal poet Fernando Pessoa, refers to one or more imaginary character created by a poet to write in different styles....
.)

Homonyms can be seen as the subclass of homophones that are spelled the same, which is logically the same as the subclass of homographs that are pronounced the same. This means words that are spelled and pronounced the same (but have different meanings).

Polysemes
Polysemy

Polysemy is the capacity for a sign or signs to have multiple meanings , i.e. a large semantic field. This is a pivotal concept within social sciences, such as media studies and linguistics....
are words with the same spelling and distinct but related meanings. The distinction between polysemy and homonymy is often subtle and subjective, and not all sources consider polysemous words to be homonyms. Words such as "mouth", meaning either the orifice on one's face, or the opening of a cave
Cave

A cave is a natural underground void large enough for a human to enter. Some people suggest that the term cave should only apply to cavities that have some part that does not receive daylight; however, in popular usage, the term includes smaller spaces like sea caves, rock shelters, and grottos....
or river
River

A river is a natural stream of water, usually freshwater, flowing toward an ocean, a lake, or another stream. In some cases a river flows into the ground or dries up completely before reaching another body of water....
, are polysemous and may or may not be considered homonyms.

Capitonym
Capitonym

A capitonym is a word that changes its meaning when it is capitalized, and usually applies to capitalization due to proper nouns or eponyms. It is a portmanteau of the word capital with the suffix -onym....
s are words that share the same spelling but have different meanings when capitalized (and may or may not have different pronunciations). Such words include polish (to make shiny) and Polish
Polish language

Polish , an official language of Poland, has the largest number of speakers of any West Slavic languages. Polish-speakers use the language in a uniform manner through most of Poland, and it has a regular orthography....
(from Poland).

In derivation, homograph means "same writing", homophone means "same sound", heteronym means "different name", and heterophone means "different sound".

TERM	Meaning	Spelling	Pronunciation
Homonym	Different	Same	Same
Homograph	Different	Same	Don't care
Homophone	Different	Don't care	Same
Heteronym	Different	Same	Different
Polyseme	Similar/Related root	Same	Don't care/Should be similar?
Capitonym	Different	Same/Difference in caps	Don't care

That Homonyms, Heteronyms belong to the subset of Homographs and Homophones follow from the fact that Homographs only care about spellings and Homophones only care about pronunciations. The root of the terminological confusion (see below) is the fact that for words to be Homophonic/Homographic they should merely have the same pronunciation/spelling while there is no comment on spelling/pronunciation made respectively.

Terminological confusion

There is considerable confusion and contradiction in published sources about the distinction between homonyms, homographs, homophones and heteronyms. Significant variant interpretations include:

Chambers 21st Century Dictionary defines a homonym as "a word with the same sound and spelling as another, but with a different meaning" (italics added). Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English also defines a homonym as "a word that is spelt the same and sounds the same as another, but is different in meaning or origin." Random House Unabridged Dictionary explains in greatest detail that homonym is the technically correct term for words that are simultaneously homographs and homophones but that it is used in the sense of only homograph or only homophone in nontechnical contexts. Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary also says that a homonym is "one of two or more words spelt and pronounced alike but different in meaning" (italics added), but appears to also give homonym as a synonym for either homophone or homograph. Cambridge Dictionary of American English defines homonym as "a word that is spelt the same as another word but that does not have the same meaning" and adds "A homonym is also a homophone".

The entry for homograph in The Encyclopaedia Britannica (14th Edition) states that homographs are "words spelt but not sounded alike", and homophones are "words alike only in sound (i.e. not alike in spelling)" (italics and comment added).

Homographs are defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as words that are spelt and pronounced the same as another but with a different meaning (which is the definition of a homonym in most other sources), thus excluding pairs such as desert (abandon) and desert (arid region), which are considered homographs by most other sources.

The Encarta dictionary defines heteronym as "each of two or more words that are spelt the same, but differ in meaning and often in pronunciation" (italics added). The "Fun with Words" website similarly says that a heteronym is "One of two (or more) words that have the same spelling, but different meaning, and sometimes different pronunciation too".

Further examples

A further example of a homonym which is both a homophone and a homograph is fluke. Fluke can mean:

A fish, and a flatworm
Flatworm

The flatworms, known in scientific literature as Platyhelminthes are a Phylum of relatively simple bilaterian, Segmentation , soft-bodied invertebrate animals....
.
The end parts of an anchor
Anchor

An anchor is an object, often made out of metal, that is used to attach a ship to the bottom of a body of water at a specific point. There are two primary classes of anchors?temporary and permanent....
.
The fins on a whale
Whale

Whales are marine mammals of order Cetacea which are neither dolphinsmembers, in other words, of the families Oceanic dolphin or River dolphinnor porpoises....
's tail.
A stroke of luck
Luck

Luck is a chance happening, or that which happens beyond a person's control. Luck can be good or bad ....
.

All four are separate lexeme

Lexeme

A lexeme is an abstract Unit of Morphology Semantic analysis in linguistics, that roughly corresponds to a set of forms taken by a single word....
s with separate etymologies

Etymology

Etymology is the study of the roots and history of words; and how their form and meaning have changed over time.In languages with a long detailed history, etymology makes use of philology, the study of how words change from culture to culture over time....
, but share the one form, fluke.*

Similarly, a river bank, a savings bank, a bank of switches, and a bank shot in pool share only a common spelling and pronunciation, but not meaning.

The words bow and bough are interesting because there are two meanings associated with a single pronunciation and spelling (the weapon and the knot); there are two meanings with two different pronunciations (the knot and the act of bending at the waist), and there are two distinct meanings sharing the same sound but different spellings: (bow, the act of bending at the waist, and bough, the branch of a tree). In addition, it has several related but distinct meanings - a bent line is sometimes called a 'bowed' line, reflecting its similarity to the weapon. Thus, even according to the most restrictive definitions, various pairs of sounds and meanings of bow and bough are homonyms, homographs, homophones, heterophones, heterographs, and are polysemous.

bow - To bend forward at the waist in respect (e.g. "bow down")
bow - the front of the ship (e.g. "bow and stern")
bow - the weapon which shoots arrows (e.g. "bow and arrow")
bow - a kind of tied ribbon (e.g. bow on a present, a bowtie)
bow - to bend outward at the sides (e.g. a "bow-legged" cowboy)
bough - a branch on a tree. (e.g. "when the bough breaks...")
bo - a long staff, usually made of tapered hard wood or bamboo
beau--a male paramour

Homonymy in historical linguistics

Homonymy can lead to communicative conflicts and thus trigger lexical (onomasiological

Onomasiology

Onomasiology is a branch of linguistics concerned with the question "how do you express X?" It is in fact most commonly understood as a branch of lexicology, the study of words ....
) change. This is known as homonymic conflict.

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