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A more restrictive and technical definition requires that homonyms be simultaneously homographs and homophones [1] —that is, they have identical spelling and pronunciation but different meanings. Examples include the pair stalk (part of a plant) and stalk (follow/harass a person) and the pair left ( past tense of leave ) and left (opposite of ...
Most of the pairs listed below are closely related: for example, "absent" as a noun meaning "missing", and as a verb meaning "to make oneself missing". There are also many cases in which homographs are of an entirely separate origin, or whose meanings have diverged to the point that present-day speakers have little historical understanding: for ...
If, when spoken, the meanings may be distinguished by different pronunciations, the words are also heteronyms. Words with the same writing and pronunciation (i.e. are both homographs and homophones) are considered homonyms. However, in a broader sense the term "homonym" may be applied to words with the same writing or pronunciation.
Some are homonyms, such as basta, which can either mean 'enough' or 'coarse', and some exist because of homophonous letters. For example, the letters b and v are pronounced exactly alike, so the words basta (coarse) and vasta (vast) are pronounced identically. [17] Other homonyms are spelled the same, but mean different things in different genders.
A heteronym (also known as a heterophone) is a word that has a different pronunciation and meaning from another word but the same spelling. These are homographs that are not homophones. Thus, lead (/ˈlɛd/ the metal) and lead (/ˈliːd/ a leash) are heteronyms, but mean (/ˈmin/ average) and mean (/ˈmin/ intend) are not, since they are ...
This is a set of lists of English personal and place names having spellings that are counterintuitive to their pronunciation because the spelling does not accord with conventional pronunciation associations. Many of these are degenerations in the pronunciation of names that originated in other languages.
The sentence employs three distinct meanings of the word buffalo: As an attributive noun (acting as an adjective) to refer to a specific place named Buffalo, such as the city of Buffalo, New York; As the verb to buffalo, meaning (in American English [1] [2]) "to bully, harass, or intimidate" or "to baffle"; and
The cognates in the table below share meanings in English and Spanish, but have different pronunciation. Some words entered Middle English and Early Modern Spanish indirectly and at different times. For example, a Latinate word might enter English by way of Old French, but enter Spanish directly from Latin. Such differences can introduce ...