homophone
noun
Simple meaning
A word which is pronounced the same as another word but differs in spelling or meaning or origin.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
hohmohfohnSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈhoʊmoʊfoʊn
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
semantics
Two words are homophones if they are pronounced the same way but differ in meaning or spelling or both (e.g. bare and bear)
semantics
A word which is pronounced the same as another word but differs in spelling or meaning or origin.
A letter or group of letters which are pronounced the same as another letter or group of letters.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
- Typical Use
- Rare
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: Two words are homophones if they are pronounced the same way but differ in meaning or spelling or both (e.g. bare and bear)
Used this way, homophone is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
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What Does It Mean Here?
Words can change meaning depending on context.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.