How many homonyms/homophones can you come up with?
Asked by
jlm11f (
12416
)
June 3rd, 2008
No google-ing allowed! Examples – pear and pair. carrot and carat. clique and click. i will add more once i think of them!
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79 Answers
too, to, two
there, their, they’re
lyre, liar
flower, flour
know, no
whirled, world
@ Megan – i wouldn’t pronounce “Mary” and “Marry” the same. but i guess they are close enough huh?
@ PnL I was told that it depends on what part of the country you live
wow you guys are pretty good!
@joey- Isn’t ton and tonne just different ways of spelling the same word? Like programme and program or catalogue and catalog?
@Astro i always thought one was metric and one was imperial
1000 pounds and 1000 kilos
@ joey – fore can also go with your “four and for”
bare, bear
sea, see
boar, bore
You might be right ‘bout that.
What about homophones/homonyms with more than one syllable? It looks like flower/flour is the only one we have so far.
dyeing, dying
i suppose dye, die then
mike/mic !
@ megan – more than one is okay as long as you aren’t going into phrases i think.
Haha, right & write. That’s the easiest thing I could think of. Good thing no one’s posted it yet!
won, one
or you pronounce those differently?
i pronounce them the same
hmm death, deaf are definitely too different in my opinion
shoot, chute
read, reed
tie, Thai
try,tri
by, bi
stirrup, stir-up
Oh! Randy and Randi.
Do names count? There could be a bunch of them.
My Crow Waves
Microwaves
okay, I’m cheating now.
fare, fair.
@ randy – i think all names can be spelled in too many different ways which would make it complicated. like…Rebekka, Rebecka, Rebekkah, Rebecca.
This is why the english language is so difficult to learn.
tare, tear
tale, tail
which, witch
weather, whether
whale, wail
@ PnL- yeah, i thought I was on to something untill I realized that.
@ AC – situation, sit you asian. j/k !
chuck, whirled and world are pronounced differently.
@ breedmitch – i think it is one of those pronunciations that depend on the location
lite-light
lock-lack
leave-live
gone-gun
@ notreallyhere – i think you missed the point. lock and lack? you pronounce them the same? same for leave-live, and gone-gun. we are talking about words that are spelled differently/mean something different (so lite and light don’t work either) but are pronounced the same.
If s/he’s Australian s/he might pronounce those the same.
really?...I don’t pronounce effect and affect the same, do you?
I pronounce effect and affect differently and I’m in NorCal.
hmm good point. i can see them sounding the same when someone is talking fast, but you are right about them not being the same when spoken clearly. did i use any other words wrongly?
that’s ok. Most of the words people mentioned are pronounced slightly different
eight and ate
sight and site
weight and wait
great and grate
greater and grater
ale and ail
mail and mail
bail and bale
tail and tale
bite and byte
sorry, iPhone messing up. Hope I didn’t duplicate, but I’m too tired to go through
the list again.
Edit: mail and male
cel, cell, & sell
gnu, new & knew
might, mite
@seesul, actually “mail and mail” does work, because the question asks about homonyms as well as homophones.
Two words spelled the same with different meanings, like mail with postage and mail in armor, are actually homographs which is a subcategory in homonymy.
(As it turns out, homophones are also a subcategory of homonyms)
Sorry people, my answer isn’t exactly correct since they all start with different sounds but it’s still pretty hilarious.
close, clothes
ade, aide
bowled, bold
you’ll, yule
reek, wreak
affect, effect
doc, dock
see, sea
air, heir
quarts, quartz
aisle, isle
rays, raise, raze
altar, alter
taile, tale
ate, eight
doe, dough
crews, cruise
write, right
cote, coat
rose, rose
caret, carrot
maize, maze
where, wear
here, hear
piece, peace
wrack, rack
pea, pee
prince, prints
way, weigh
which, witch
blue, blew
sun, son
weight, wait
sight, site
feet, feat
cereal, serial
threw, through
whole, hole
too, to, two
past, passed
scene, seen
here, hear
council, counsel
allowed, aloud
course, coarse
buy, bye, by
good point, ezra, but it was very late, I was on my iPhone, and it was giving me trouble, so it wasn’t intentional. It’s nice how a dumb mistake can point out even more subtleties in the English language.
I guess my favorite thing when running into non-native English speakers that are learning the language is to point them to the I Love Lucy episode where Ricky is reading a story to Little Ricky that uses various pronunciations of “ough”.
Almost forgot.
rolls, roles
@ babygalll – wow you are really good at this!!
their there
tier tear
but butt
blue bleu
wren ren
thyme time
mead meed
principle principal
deer dear
die dye
mai my
serf surf
racquet racket
knit nit
beadle beatle (only in america)
gene jean
i ay eye
ant aunt (america)
inn in
snyper sniper
be bea
dew due do
I looked quickly and didn’t see this one:
clique, click
Sorry if it’s a repeat
@ spendy – i had that one in the description of the question. but you are forgiven :)
Serves me right…I scrolled all the way up but didn’t re-read your blurb. WHOOPS ;)
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