Same spelling, different word
The word homograph is made of two old Greek parts. Homo means “same”, and graph means “something written”. So a homograph is written the same way as another word.
The Cambridge Dictionary gives three bows as its example. There is the front of a ship, a loop tied in a ribbon, and a weapon for shooting arrows. All three are spelt b, o, w.
Some homographs sound different
Some homographs change their sound when they change their meaning. Say these out loud and listen. The table uses the British way of saying each word.
| Word | One way to say it | Another way to say it |
|---|---|---|
| tear | Rhymes with ear: a drop from your eye | Rhymes with air: to rip |
| lead | Rhymes with bed: a heavy grey metal | Rhymes with seed: to show the way, or a dog's lead |
| wind | The i of win: moving air | Rhymes with find: to turn, or to wrap round |
| bow | Rhymes with go: a knot in a ribbon | Rhymes with cow: to bend forward |
| row | Rhymes with go: a line of seats | Rhymes with cow: a noisy argument |
| close | Ends in a “z” sound: to shut | Ends in an “s” sound: near |
| wound | The “oo” of moon: a cut | Rhymes with round: wrapped round, from wind |
| minute | MIN-it: sixty seconds | my-NEWT: very, very small |
In some pairs, the beat moves. A record is a thing, and you say it REC-ord. To record is to do something, and you say it re-CORD. It is the same with a present you are given (PRES-ent) and the verb to present (pre-SENT).
Some homographs sound the same
Not every homograph changes its sound. A cricket bat and the bat that flies at night sound just the same. So do a dog's bark and the bark on a tree.
With these, you can't hear which word is meant. The rest of the sentence usually tells you.
How did two words end up with one spelling?
Some homographs began as two quite different words. In Old English, the metal was lead, but the word for showing the way was lædan. The drop from your eye was a tear, but the word for ripping was teran. Over hundreds of years, each pair came to be spelt the same.
Others come from one family. Record, the thing, and record, the action, both go back to the old French word recorder.
Sounds can change, too, while the spelling stays put. Long ago, wind, the moving air, could rhyme with kind. In a song in Shakespeare's play As You Like It, wind rhymes with unkind. The song starts “Blow, blow, thou winter wind”, and the next line is “Thou art not so unkind”. Later, the air word took the short sound we use today.
Why the names get muddled
The Cambridge Dictionary and the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary agree on the main idea: same spelling, different meaning. Both say a homograph may sound different. So both kinds of bow count, and so do both kinds of bat.
Word experts have a special name for homographs that sound different: heteronyms. The two tears are heteronyms. The two bats are not.
The muddle comes with words that look the same and sound the same, like the two bats. Merriam-Webster, an American dictionary, says words like these are sometimes called homophones and sometimes homographs. It says that makes naming them “a bit confusing”. Some dictionaries call them homonyms. So does the glossary for England's national curriculum. Its example is a dog's bark and a tree's bark.
Homographs and homophones
Homophones are about sound. They sound the same, like hear and here. England's national curriculum lists homophones to learn in Year 2, in Years 3 and 4, and in Years 5 and 6.
| Words | Spelt the same? | Said the same? | Can be called |
|---|---|---|---|
| tear (a drop) and tear (to rip) | Yes | No | Homographs, or heteronyms |
| bat (for cricket) and bat (that flies) | Yes | Yes | Homographs, or homonyms |
| hear and here | No | Yes | Homophones |
Try these out loud
Each of these has the same word twice, with two meanings. Can you read them without a slip?
- We had a row about who would sit in the front row.
- She had a tear in her eye when she saw the tear in her coat.
- The nurse wound a bandage round the wound.
- Take a bow, then tie a bow.
Questions people ask
Is a homonym the same as a homograph?
Not quite. The Cambridge Dictionary gives homonym two meanings. It can mean a word that sounds the same as another word, or is spelt the same. Or it can mean a word that is spelt the same and sounds the same, like bat and bat.
How do you know which word it is?
Read the whole sentence. In “a tear ran down her face”, the tear must be a drop from an eye. The Cambridge Dictionary says the same thing: you can normally tell which one is meant from the words around it.