Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun One of two or more words that have the same spelling but differ in origin, meaning, and sometimes pronunciation, such as fair (pleasing in appearance) and fair (market) or wind (wĭnd) and wind (wīnd).
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In philology, a word which has exactly the same form as another, though of a different origin and signification: thus, base the adjective and base the noun, fair the adjective and fair the noun, are homographs. See
homonym .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Philol.) One of two or more words identical in orthography, but having different derivations and meanings.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A word that is
spelled the same as another word, usually having a differentetymology , such as "bear", the animal, and "bear", to support, to tolerate, etc.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun two words are homographs if they are spelled the same way but differ in meaning (e.g. fair)
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word homograph.
Examples
-
Homographs - A homograph is a word that is spelt the same, but has a different meaning.
Site Home ecmblog 2010
-
If he starts from that position, he could then argue that reducing “all right” to an “alright” that * means the same thing* as (the acceptable-in-writing) “all right” is illogical (it would be creating, in effect, a new homograph to ‘alright’).
The pot calling the kettle illogical « Motivated Grammar 2009
-
Technically a homonym is both a homophone (different words that sound the same) and a homograph (different words that are spelled the same).
Matthew Yglesias » In What Culture is Having a Shoe Thrown At You a Sign of Respect? 2010
-
I think what bothers me isn't the word itself, but the fear of using the word sewer because it is a homograph.
-
Interestingly, in appears that in the scientific literature "homophone" and "homograph" mean the same thing, which explains why there are so many papers about mispronouncing homophones.
Archive 2009-10-01 josh 2009
-
Interesting that the homograph and heteronym pages missed a few, like Nice/nice.
The Volokh Conspiracy » Why Do “We Need a Good, Violent Movie About Salamis”? 2009
-
Interestingly, in appears that in the scientific literature "homophone" and "homograph" mean the same thing, which explains why there are so many papers about mispronouncing homophones.
Why do so many homophones have two pronunciations? josh 2009
-
A heteronym is a homograph with differing meaning and pronunciation.
The Volokh Conspiracy » Why Do “We Need a Good, Violent Movie About Salamis”? 2009
-
The phrase 'body of Christ' is a homograph: it has two distinct meanings.
Corpus Christi Roundup Mike L 2006
-
Neither's completely perfect for instance a homograph doesn't imply that the pronunciation is different and the heteronym doesn't imply that the meaning need be different.
Homographs and Heteronyms Jono 2005
jmjarmstrong commented on the word homograph
JM wonders if homograph is a homograph?
April 6, 2011