A homophone () is a word that is pronounced the same (to a varying extent) as another word but differs in meaning. 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 sometimes applies to units longer or shorter than words, for example a phrase, letter, or groups of letters which are pronounced the same as a counterpart. Any unit with this property is said to be homophonous ().
Homophones that are spelled the same are deemed 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.
Etymology
"Homophone" derives from Greek homo- (ὁμο‑), "same", and phōnḗ (φωνή), "voice, utterance".
Wordplay and games
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. Some examples from English are:
pin and pen in many southern American accents
by and buy
merry, marry, and Mary in most American accents
The pairs do and due as well as forward and foreword are homophonous in most American accents but not in most English accents The pairs talk and torque as well as court and caught are distinguished in rhotic accents, such as Scottish English, and most dialects of American English, but are homophones in some non-rhotic accents, such as British Received Pronunciation
Wordplay is particularly common in English because the multiplicity of linguistic influences offers considerable complication in spelling and meaning and pronunciation compared with other languages.
Malapropisms, which often create a similar comic effect, are usually near-homophones. See also Eggcorn.
Same-sounding phrases
Same-sounding (homophonous, or homophonic) phrases are often used in various word games. Examples of same-sounding phrases (which may only be true homophones in certain dialects of English) include:
ice cream vs. I scream (as in the meme I scream. You scream. We all scream for ice cream.) euthanasia vs. Youth in Asia depend vs. deep end Gemini vs. gem in eye vs. Jim and I (vs. Jem in eye) the sky vs. this guy (most notably as a mondegreen in "Purple Haze" by Jimi Hendrix) four candles vs. fork handles sand which is there vs. sandwiches there philanderers vs. Flanders example vs. egg sample some others vs. some mothers vs. smothers
American comedian Jeff Foxworthy frequently uses same-sounding phrases in his Appalachian comedy routine, which play on exaggerated "country" accents. Notable examples include:
Initiate vs. and then she ate: "My wife ate two sandwiches, initiate a bag o' tater chips." Mayonnaise vs. Man, there is: "Mayonnaise a lot of people here tonight." Innuendo vs. in your window: "Hey dude I saw a bird fly innuendo." Moustache vs. must ask: "I Moustache you a question."
During the 1980s, an attempt was made to promote a distinctive term for same-sounding multiple words or phrases, by referring to them as "oronyms", but the term oronym was already well established in linguistics as an onomastic designation for a class of toponymic features (names of mountains, hills, etc.), the alternative use of the same term was not well accepted in scholarly literature.
In various languages
English
There are sources which maintain lists of homophones (words with identical pronunciations but different spellings) and even 'multinyms.' There is disagreement among such lists due to dialectical variations in pronunciation and archaic uses. In English, concerning groups of homophones (excluding proper nouns), there are approximately 88 triplets, 24 quadruplets, 2 quintuplets, 1 sextet, 1 septet, and 1 questionable octet (possibly a second septet). The questionable octet is: