Easiest And Simplest Approach To Homophone

Here in this article, you will explore the different concept of Homophone, Homograph and Homonyms. I have tried to explain all these concepts in simple language ,providing ample examples of each so as to make it very clear and precise in terms of understanding the concept and using the fun and pun part of Homophones.

So let's get started.

HOMOPHONE:

Homophone is a combination of two words"Homo" and "Phone". Homo means similar and phone means the sound. So we can clearly understand now that homophone is a pair of words with similar sound but different spellings and different meaning. Thus,the basic feature of a homophone is similar sound or pronunciation. Let's see following examples to clear our concept of Homophone.

• Carrot vs carat
• Ant vs Aunt
• Buy vs Bye
• Hole vs Whole
• Waist vs Waste
• Break vs Brake
• Cell vs Sell
• Foul vs Fowl
• Genes vs Jeans
• Fair vs Fare
• Bare vs Bear
• Merry vs Marry
• Bored vs Board
• Won vs One
• See vs Sea
• Hair vs Hare
• Write vs Right
• Father vs Farther
• Die vs Dye
• Council vs Counsel
• Altar vs Alter
• Coarse vs Course
• Knight vs Night
• Sole vs soul
• Cent vs scent
• Weather vs Whether
• Hear vs Here
• Idle vs Idol
• Tale vs Tail
• Poor vs pour
• Floor vs Flour
• Deer vs Dear
• Mail vs Male
• Ball vs Bawl
• Compliment vs Complement

So from above examples, it's quite clear that homophone is spelled differently, they carry very different meanings but they sound almost similar.

Homograph:

Homographs are words carrying different meanings in different context. Simply, it means words spelled similarly,pronounced similarly but carry different meanings. Homograph is again a combination of two individual words "homo" meaning " "same" and "graph" meaning "written",so when we read this together we learn homographs are words written or spelled similarly but vary greatly in their meanings.

 Mentioned below are few examples of homographexamples of homograph which will make your concept even more clear:

• BOW :A weapon to shoot arrow                        To bend at the waist
• WOUND: past tense of wind                                           Injury
• OBJECT: to disapprove                                      Non living thing

• CLOSE: To shut down
•                Very near

• TEAR: To rip apart

                 Water coming down of eyes

• SIGN: symptoms

                    Signature

• FIT: Tantrums

                 Match

• SPRING: A season

                         To bounce

• MEAN: cruel

                      To imply

• BAT: A piece of sports equipment

                  An animal

• BOARD: To board a flight or train

                      Blackboard,whiteboard

Now let's move forward to Homonyms

HOMONYMS:

If we strictly go by the dictionary meaning then homonyms are both homographs and homophones. If we clearly understand the definition, we mean that homonyms are words with identical spelling and pronunciation but differ in meanings. Thus ,they are homographs(same spelling regardless of pronunciation) and homophones(same pronunciation regardless of different spellings).A homonym is homograph and Homonyms simultaneously.

• Lie: untruth

             To recline

• BARK:The sound a dog makes

                  Trees outer layer

• EXPRESS: To do something quite fast

                        To express one's views

• POUND: An unit of measurement

                     To beat

• REAM: A pile of paper

                  To juice a citrus fruit

• ROCK:  A stone

                 A genre of muisc

• TIRE: A part of the wheel

                To grow fatigued

• JAG: A sharp ,jutted object

              A crying spree

• CAN:  A metal  container

                Able to

Here ,I give a simple trick to understand a homonym. If you come across a word that does not make sense in that context then check its alternate definition. The word cab be a homonym that is,spelled similarly,pronounced similarly but vary meaning wise. It is the duty of the writer to use the pun part of homonyms aptly to convey the meaning readily to the readers.

HOMOPHONE: Same sound Different spelling Different meaning

HOMOGRAPH Almost same sound Same spelling Different meaning

HOMONYMS  Same sound Same spelling Different meaning

Understanding the concept of homophone can be quite tricky,no matter how proficient you are in English ,it's quite natural to fall in the tricky quirks of homophones. So, homophones are generally termed as 'confusing words'.I hope this article helps you with understanding it in simple and easy manner.