Homonym

Homonym (Gr. ὁμώνομος, having the same name, from ὅμος, same, alike, and ὄνομα, name), a term in philology for those words which differ in sense but are alike either in sound or spelling or both. Words alike only in spelling but not in sound, e.g. “bow,” are sometimes called homographs; and words alike only in sound but not in spelling, e.g. “meat,” “meet,” homophones. Skeat (Etymol. Dict.) gives a list of English homonyms.

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