Homonyms or not? - Young World Club 
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Homonyms or not?

  • POSTED ON: 7 Nov, 2020
  • TOTAL VIEWS: 488 Views
  • POSTED BY: Bhavya Venkatesh
  • ARTICLE POINTS: 150 Points

Have you ever come across two words that have the same spelling but mean completely different things? Or words that have different spellings but are pronounced the same way? Words like these, which share the same spelling or pronunciation or both are called homonyms, homophones, homographs or heteronyms. There are varying definitions for these terms with some categories overlapping with each other. Learning what they are can help you use such words correctly without getting confused.

In this article, let’s understand the first category, homonyms. A common technical explanation is that, in a strict sense, homonyms are words that have the same spelling and the same pronunciation, but different meanings. For example,

  • Left (He left the house this morning) and left (She took a left turn)
  • Light (She turned on the light) and light (His suitcase was really light)

    • Take this interactive exercise to understand the concept better. Each task below has one pair of words that are homonyms according to the definition given above, and one pair that are not. Can you identify them correctly?





    Great going! More on homophones, homographs and heteronyms later!