Sunday, September 8, 2013

Homophones

Homophones are words which are pronounced the same but differ in meaning.  English is a language which has several.  Sometimes the words are spelled the same and sometimes they are spelled differently.

The words rose (flower) and rose (past tense of rise) are spelled the same but have very different meanings. On the other hand, through and threw not only have different meanings but are spelled differently.

Here are a few examples of English homophones:

aisle isle I'll
two too to
there their they're
we'll wheel
some sum
blue blew
son sun
won one
sale sail
for four

English has many examples of homophones, words which share the same pronunciation but differ in meaning. Homophones can have the same spelling or a different spelling, but they must have different meanings. Homophones that have the same spelling are also known as homographs and those that have a different spelling are known as heterographs.

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