What are Homophones?

A homophone is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but has a different meaning, spelling, or origin. Homophones are often used to create puns and can be difficult to spot when you’re reading something. Some common English homophones include: brake/break flower/flour, here/hear, I/eye, our/hour, they’re/their/there, you’re/your.

Homophonic words are not always spelled the same—some have different spellings but are pronounced in the same way. For example “flower” and “flour” are homophones even though they have different letters. This can happen when two words have the same pronunciation but come from different origins—like “break” (to destroy) which comes from Old English whereas “brake” (a device for slowing down a vehicle) came into English from Dutch. In these cases it may be helpful to remember the original meaning of the word or look at its derivation to help you choose the right spelling.

When multiple meanings of a single word exist, it is known as a polyseme. Polysemes can be homonyms (spelled and pronounced alike), like quail (the bird) and quail (to cower in fear), or heteronyms (spelled alike but pronounced differently), like desert (a dry wasteland) and desert (to abandon). Heteronyms are actually a type of homograph—words that are spelled identically but have different pronunciations and meanings—but they deserve their own category because they can be so tricky!