Live briefing
Everything about Homonym
Words spelled or pronounced the same with different meanings
In linguistics, homonyms are words that are either homographs, words that mean different things but have the same spelling ; or homophones, words that mean different things but have the same pronunciation. Using this definition, the words row (propel with oars), row (a linear arrangement) and row (an argument) are homonyms because they are homographs. So are the words see (vision) and sea (body of water), because they are homophones. Wikipedia →
🧭 Start here: a 6-step reading path
- Read the overview: HomonymA 5-minute orientation
- Skim a recent paper: Pupillometric and behavioural evidence shows no differences between polyseme and homonym processingInfluential work since 2022
- Pick up a classic book: AmarakośaThe most-reprinted book on the subject
- Read the landmark paper: A comparison of homonym and novel word learning: the role of phonotactic probability and word frequencyCited 61 times
- Go sideways: HomographA closely related topic
- Go sideways: PolysemyA closely related topic
📖 Definitions
Noun A word that sounds or is spelled the same as another word (but not necessarily both).
Noun A word that both sounds and is spelled the same as another word.
Noun A name for a taxon that is identical in spelling to another name that belongs to a different taxon.
🗂️ The subject at a glance
🏆 Landmark papers (most cited)
A comparison of homonym and novel word learning: the role of phonotactic probability and word frequency
Suppressing Synonymy with a Homonym: The Emergence of the Nomenclatural Type Concept in Nineteenth Century Natural History
Falsibacillus pallidus to replace the homonym Bacillus pallidus Zhou et al. 2008
Barking up the right tree: Univariate and multivariate fMRI analyses of homonym comprehension
A comparison of homonym meaning frequency estimates derived from movie and television subtitles, free association, and explicit ratings
The word frequency effect in picture naming: Contrasting two hypotheses using homonym pictures
BELHD: improving biomedical entity linking with homonym disambiguation
First Graders Receive Instruction in Homonym Detection and Meaning Articulation: The Effect of Explicit Metalinguistic Awareness Practice on Beginning Readers
🆕 Influential since 2022
Pupillometric and behavioural evidence shows no differences between polyseme and homonym processing
Hansarsia nom. nov., a replacement name for Nematoscelis G.O. Sars, 1883 (Crustacea: Euphausiidae), a junior homonym of Nematoscelis Wollaston, 1867 (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Aleocharinae)
A replacement name for Bostra Stål (Insecta, Phasmida, Diapheromeridae), a junior homonym of Bostra Walker (Insecta, Lepidoptera, Pyralidae)
The homonym advantage effects in Korean visual word recognition: Evidence from a lexical decision task
Notorhinus Moritz & Parra-Gómez, 2023 (Siphonophorida: Siphonorhinidae) junior homonym of Notorhinus Roth, 1903 (Mammalia: †Astrapotheria: incertae sedis): proposed substitution by Notiorhinus nom. nov.
📚 Books worth reading
- 📕AmarakośaAmarasiṃha. · 1907
On English homophonesRobert Seymour Bridges · 1919
A chocolate moose for dinnerFred Gwynne · 1976
The king who rainedFred Gwynne · 1970
Homophones and homographsJames B. Hobbs · 1986- 📕Slovarʹ omonimov russkogo i︠a︡zykaN. P. Kolesnikov · 1976
Aristotle on HomonymyJulie K. Ward · 2007
A dictionary of American homophones and homographsHarold C. Whitford · 1966
Ranked by number of editions on Open Library, a rough measure of how lasting a book is.
🔗 Related topics
- Homograph A homograph (from the Greek: ὁμός, homós 'same' and γράφω, gráphō 'write') is a word that shares the same written form as another word but has a different…
- Polysemy Polysemy (/pəˈlɪsɪmi/ or /ˈpɒlɪˌsiːmi/; from Ancient Greek πολύ- (polý-) 'many' and σῆμα (sêma) 'sign') is the capacity for a sign (e.g. a symbol, morpheme…
- Heteronym (linguistics) This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For…
- List of English homographs Homographs are words with the same spelling but having more than one meaning. Homographs may be pronounced the same (homophones), or they may be pronounced…
- Definition A definition is a semantic statement of the meaning of a term (a word, phrase, or other set of symbols). Definitions can be classified into two large categories…
- Homophone A homophone (/ˈhɒməfoʊn, ˈhoʊmə-/) is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning or in spelling. The two words may be spelled…
- Heteronym Look up heteronym in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Heteronym may refer to: Heteronym (linguistics), one of a group of words with identical spellings…
- False cognate False cognates are pairs of words that seem to be cognates because of similar sounds or spelling and meaning, but have different etymologies; they can…