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homonym (HOM-uh-nim) - n., (loosely) a word that either sounds or is spelled the same as another word; (strictly) a word that both sounds and is spelled the same as another word.
This, as you can see, is complicated. I need to bring in two coordinate terms to assist: a homograph is a word spelled the same as another word, either pronounced the same or differently, and a homophone is a word that is pronounced the same as another word, either spelled the same or differently. As you can tell from the first sense above, homonym is sometimes used for either homographs or homophones, but linguists would really prefer to use it strictly for words that are both homographs and homophones -- such as quail the verb and quail the birb, er, I mean bird. This, like synonym, goes back to Ancient Greek, in this casse to homṓnymon, which can be analyzed as homo-, same + the ónoma, name/noun, used in everything else this week.
Which is now complete -- back Monday with the usual random assortment.
---L.
This, as you can see, is complicated. I need to bring in two coordinate terms to assist: a homograph is a word spelled the same as another word, either pronounced the same or differently, and a homophone is a word that is pronounced the same as another word, either spelled the same or differently. As you can tell from the first sense above, homonym is sometimes used for either homographs or homophones, but linguists would really prefer to use it strictly for words that are both homographs and homophones -- such as quail the verb and quail the birb, er, I mean bird. This, like synonym, goes back to Ancient Greek, in this casse to homṓnymon, which can be analyzed as homo-, same + the ónoma, name/noun, used in everything else this week.
Which is now complete -- back Monday with the usual random assortment.
---L.
