homophone

English

Etymology

From homo- +‎ -phone.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈhɒməfəʊ̯n/, /ˈhəʊməfəʊ̯n/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈhɑːməfoʊ̯n/, /ˈhoʊməfoʊ̯n/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Noun

Examples
carat and caret carrot and karat

homophone (plural homophones)

1. A word which is pronounced the same as another word but differs in spelling or meaning or origin.
2. A letter or group of letters which are pronounced the same as another letter or group of letters.

Usage notes

A homophone is a type of homonym in the loose sense of that term (a word which sounds or is spelled the same as another). (The strict sense of homonym is a word that both sounds and is spelled the same as another word.) A homograph is a word with the same spelling as another but a completely unrelated meaning. Homographs are not necessarily homophones.

Related terms

• homophonous (adjective)

Translations

words with the same pronunciation

• Afrikaans: homofoon (af)
• Arabic: لَفْظَة مُتَجَانِسَة‎ f (lafẓa mutajānisa)
• Catalan: homòfon (ca)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 同音詞 (zh), 同音词 (zh) (tóngyīncí), (of Chinese characters) 同音字 (zh) (tóngyīnzì)

• Czech: homofon (cs) m, homofonum n
• Dutch: homofoon (nl) m
• Esperanto: homofono
• Finnish: homofoni (fi)
• French: homophone (fr) m
• German: Homophon (de) n
• Greek: ομόφωνος (el) m (omófonos)
• Hungarian: homofon (not infrequently spelled homofón), azonos kiejtésű, de eltérő jelentésű (és gyakran eltérő alakú) szó
• Icelandic: samhljóma orð n pl
• Indonesian: homofon (id)
• Irish: homafón m, téarma comhfhuaimneach m

• Italian: omofono m
• Japanese: 同音語 (どうおんご, dōongo)
• Kazakh: омофон (omofon)
• Khmer: សូរដូច (km) (soo dooc), កល្បសព្ទ (kɑlpa’sap)
• Korean: 동음이의어 (ko) (dong-eumiuieo)
• Kurdish: hevdeng (ku), homofon (ku)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: homofon (no) m

  Nynorsk: homofon m

• Portuguese: homófono (pt) m
• Russian: омофо́н (ru) m (omofón)
• Serbo-Croatian: homofon (sh) m, istozvučnica (sh) f
• Spanish: homófono (es) m, homófona f
• Swedish: homofon (sv) c (1)
• Thai: คำพ้องเสียง (th) (kam-pɔ́ɔng-sǐiang)
• Turkish: sesteş kelime (1), sesteş (tr)
• Welsh: cyfunsain m, homoffon m

See also

• Appendix:English dialect-independent homophones

An Euler diagram showing the relationship between these -nyms.

Different Meanings

nym	Sound	Spelling	Category
homonym	same	same
heteronym	different	same	(cat)
homograph	not specified	same
homophone	same	different	(cat)
heterophone	different	different
synonym

Further reading

• homophone on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

---

French

Pronunciation

• ^{(mute h)} IPA^(key): /ɔ.mɔ.fɔn/

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɔn
• Homophone: homophones

Adjective

homophone (plural homophones)

1. homophonous

Noun

homophone m (plural homophones)

1. homophone

See also

• Homophone on the French Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^fr

Further reading

• “homophone” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).